Starry Path
by CrazyTeddyBear
Summary: It's after Breaking Dawn,but things haven't gotten any less weird in the town of Forks.The Cullens are moving to a new town when trouble arrives-and this trouble happens to be aliens coming in from outer space.Canon pairings,BD spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story contains Breaking Dawn spoilers. I am not Stephanie Meyer- if I were then I probably wouldn't be writing about aliens attacking Forks [= But if the idea of such a story appeals to you, then leave a review so that I know I should continue ;]**

**Chapter One- Calm Before the Storm**

**Bella POV**

I ran the brush through Renesmee's hair, getting the tangles out and putting it into a braid for bed. I leaned back into Edward's chest inhaling the scent of my family. Surrounded by the entire Cullen family (plus Jacob, but he would be a member of our family soon enough... unfortunately) in the living room of our house, life couldn't be better. It was like an eternity of paradise.

I put the last elastic in Nessie's hair, "time to go to bed sweetie," I crooned, Nessie stirred in my arms, she was still half asleep. It was only a year after the Volturi incident and she already looked ten. Not that that stopped anyone in the house from picking her up and cuddling her- I'm surprised she's even learned how to walk. No-one ever puts her down.

Jacob had promised to wait until Nessie was old enough to make her own decisions about where their relationship would progress. We had told her everything about imprinting- why not? Why would we keep a secret from her if it would affect her so much? It wouldn't help us with anything, Nessie is mentally developed enough to understand the concept and make her own decisions on when she wants start making out with Jacob. Although I had told her if she did that before she was physically about sixteen or so she'd be grounded for the rest of her life.

She's still in the body of a ten year old though, which means bedtime at eight forty-five every night- and that really irritates her, since her mind is at about the level of a sixteen year old, and sixteen year olds hardly ever go to bed at all. Luckily for us though, she understands the limits of her body and is willing to put up with them.

Edward picked her up and we walked up the stairs to her room. It was painted in all dark blues and golds; we had re-painted Edward's old room for her. It's not like this house doesn't have any empty rooms in it.

We tucked her in and she stirred slightly, I bent down and kissed her forehead. Edward wrapped his arms around me and we walked out of the room and back down the stairs to the living room. I sat back down on the couch and curled up in Edward's lap. Carlisle was watching the news and I heard Esme in the kitchen. Alice and Rosalie were sitting on the floor with fashion magazines and designs spread out around them. Emmett, Jacob and Jasper were down in the basement playing games.

We had allowed the werewolves to take over our cottage, since there was more chance for an accident if they didn't have a space that's 'theirs'- especially since Leah still hates us. She and Seth were visiting my dad and Sue; they would be back in a few days.

I sighed and took a deep breath, when I was this relaxed I could almost pretend I'm human and about to fall asleep. That's the only thing I miss really, I can't dream anymore. Not that I really need to, it's like I'm living in one right now. I turned my attention to Edward, "Do you want to go hunting?" I asked, the burn rising in my throat at the thought of hunting.

"Of course love. I bet we can find some bears up at Goat Rocks," He murmured.

"Mmmm... sounds good to me." I responded. We told Carlisle where we were planning to go and he promised to look after Nessie until we got back. I told him we weren't planning to be long and he told us to take our time. We rarely got very much alone time any more.

That sounded like a good idea to me, there was a beautiful cliff top that looked over the horizon that was virtually inaccessible to humans. Edward and I liked to spend our alone time there.

But first we had to go hunting.

Despite my super control I drank as much blood as about any newborn- no one really wanted to test out how far that control could go, especially since the only humans we could test it on are the ones I really care about. And that probably isn't the best way to go. We climbed into the Volvo, turning it on. I could understand Edward's need for speed now; when you could run faster than the car it made perfect sense to at least make the car go fast -and since we were virtually indestructible and had sharper reflexes than you could imagine- the chances of us getting hurt in a car crash is slim to none.

We pulled our car over onto a dirt road, climbing out and cautiously sniffing the air, looking for any signs of humans. The forest was mysterious at night, the deep greens and browns turning into dark blacks and grays, shadows. My eyes could still make out every detail, every crack in the bark on a tree, every blade of grass. It was amazing. The cars headlight turned off and we were left in the darkness.

"Are you ready love?" asked Edward, his still golden eyes looking almost cat-like in the night. I nodded, slipping into a crouch and taking a deep breath- tasting the air for any hint of that delicious warmth pounding through our prey's veins. Taking in every tiny sound I could hear Edward behind me, the wind rustling softly through the tree's branches and the tiny heartbeats of animals to small to be worth hunting.

And in the distance I heard a deeper thudding, the delicious scent travelling across the distance. I started running, flying through the trees- heading towards the delicious pounding and the ability to quench the ever raging thirst in the back of my throat. The fire roared up as if it was creating a third degree burn in the back of my throat. I launched myself across the distance onto the unsuspecting brown bear, searching for his throat. Its attempts to get me off of it were futile compared to my iron strength. My teeth sank into the bear's neck, cutting through muscle and bone like a hot knife through butter- all the thick fur, strong skin and bones meant to protect that center of life were useless when faced with a vampire.

The warm blood flowed down throat, quenching the thirst and bringing the needed relief. It had an almost nutty flavour- it still didn't taste very good, but after a while one could get used to the bad taste and simply concentrate on the wonderful feeling it had going down your throat. It was like drinking the perfect hot chocolate- just hot enough to still warm you up, but cool enough you could gulp it down without worrying about burning your throat.

I drained it dry, stopping only when there wasn't any blood left in the body. I let the corpse fall through my fingers while I straightened; looking for a place to hide the body. I was still a mess- it wasn't as bad as the first time I hunted, but it was still pretty bad- there was a long rip travelling down the pant leg over my thigh, from where the bear had tried to get me off of him by running his claw down. There were twigs and branches stuck in my hair, I absentmindedly combed it with my fingers, still thinking. I picked up the bear and walked over to a tree, uprooting the tree and dropping the bear into the hole underneath before fitting the tree into place.

The clearing shone beautifully in the night, the moonlight reflecting off of the trees and leaves creating an almost mystical feeling. I wasn't actually feeling that thirsty, I had more or less gone hunting to have some alone time with Edward. I could hear him coming towards me and knew he had had a good meal too. I could smell faint traces of blood on him- as I'm sure he could smell them on me. That's assuming that he somehow missed the huge rip in my clothing and the drops of blood in the center of the clearing- not enough for humans to see or smell, but as a vampire it was as clear as the moon on a cloudless night.

He walked over and slung his arm around my shoulders, pulling me towards him so I felt enveloped in his soft scent. I inhaled softly, "Are you done Mrs. Cullen?"

I nodded slightly, smiling playfully. "Why of course I am Mr. Cullen." I wrapped my arms around him and found myself being lifted off the ground. I laughed, the bell-like noise ringing of the trees in the still night air, echoing and shattering the clear peace. Soon we were running, dancing around each other, our laughter pealing through the air as we talked of inconsequential things- for once in our lives there was no looming disaster, nothing to suppress the bright, vibrant feeling of our love. And if all went well the rest of our eternity would be like this as we lived together in our own piece of forever.

We got to the edge of the mountain and began to climb up, still teasing each other playfully. The rock crumbled underneath my grip as I found my handholds- the way paper would crumble in someone's grip. I loved the strength and power; I was so used to being the damsel in distress. Now though, I could actually hold my own instead of getting flattened by the mythical world around me.

Edward got to the ledge first, pulling himself over. We looked over a secluded ledge, almost totally surrounded by rock. There was an ancient oak tree that stood in the shade in the far back- Edward and I had spent one afternoon speculating how it could have possibly gotten there, we still hadn't figured it out. There was a creek running through the center, it was melt water from the tiny glacier at the top of the mountain. The ground was covered in flowers and grass.

The moonlight shone down on the strange place, bathing the world in silver. I turned around, knowing that I was about to see something with a stunning perfection. I looked over the horizon. The stars shone, bright and blinding across the sky. I could make out every tiny miniscule speck of light and see colours that humans couldn't even imagine. It was spectacular; I still get a shock every time I travel up there at night. It was the perfect paradise for Edward and I, the one place we knew that no one could ever find us, it was our space. We were the only vampires or humans to be up there.

It was wonderful.

I sat down on the edge of the cliff, my feet hanging over the edge. Edward sat down beside me, wrapping his arms around me. I loved how he didn't feel cold anymore- we could hug each other for an eternity without having to stop because I started shivering.

Edward reached and pushed my hair behind my ear, and our eyes met. I stared into the molten pools of gold, loosing myself in them for an eternity of bliss. They always had that effect on me- no matter how many times I see him I always feel slightly dazzled, even if we're only grocery shopping for Renesmee.

He broke the silence first, his lips moving to form the words I love most of all, "I love you Bella."

"I love you too Edward," I whispered breathlessly, still dazzled beyond measure.

He pulled me into a passionate kiss, our lips moving together, our hands grabbing at each other. It probably would have gone farther- it always does- except right as I was grabbing at his clothes there was a huge flash of light. It flew across the sky, brightening the night sky so it looked almost like day. I heard it hit the ground with a huge crash.

We both stopped kissing and turned to look at the strange column of smoke rising up from the forest. "What the on earth was that?" I gasped.

Edward looked out at it, his eyes narrowed slightly. "No idea, I'm hearing intelligent thoughts, but it's not in a language I've ever heard before. Or ever heard of for that matter- it's like it's not of this world."

I frowned before shrugging, "There's really nothing we can do about it. Let's go talk to Carlisle and see what he says." I laughed, "Maybe there are aliens in Forks now too!"

He laughed too, "I think it's pretty safe to say that the one imaginary creature in Forks that doesn't exist is an alien. Why would aliens want to come here?"

"Oh I know- all the rain and muck... especially all the _green_." I laughed, almost forgetting how I had balked at the colour green as a human. It's strange how the memories blurred- they warned me that they would seem faint and distant, but I couldn't really understand. As a human I'd never experienced any of the sharper senses, the clearer thoughts- so I couldn't really understand just how poor our senses are.

I leaned in to Edward and we started kissing again, I reached for his clothes, preparing to finish what the strange beam of light had so rudely interrupted.

**Alien POV**

This planet... it's so perfect... all of this green, this health and life. It will last for centuries supplying the needs of Aeolia, and the intelligent creatures of this planet are of just the right strength for servants; not uncontrollable, yet still _useful, _and they are the most powerful creatures here- they've proven it themselves with all their research- so we have nothing to worry about. Even the silly animals are perfect for heavy labour.

Yes... oh yes, I think we will be staying here for a while.

**Bella POV**

I took a deep breath and threw myself off the cliff- being indestructible has its definite advantages. It felt like I was flying, I gripped tightly to Edwards hand as the ground loomed up, speeding more quickly than I thought possible.

I landed on the ground, my feet sinking about an inch into the soft ground. Edward and I shot through the woods, the dark greens and browns of the forest lightening to softer greens and browns as the sun rose. We had been out the entire night and the sun had risen behind the murky dark gray clouds of Forks.

Edward opened the door to the house, still not letting go of my hand. I laughed quietly as Renesmee bounded down the stairs, "Morning Momma!" she practically sang, bouncing down the stairs, "morning Daddy! Grandpa said that you went out hunting and would be back soon."

She jumped on Edward, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in his clothing. She bounded over to me, "Morning Nessie," I crooned, kissing her on the forehead, "did you sleep well?"

She nodded, "Uh-huh, is Jake coming over today?" her face lit up at the thought of her imprint, filling it with the kind of glow I got when I looked at my family.

Edward and I looked at each other wryly, "I'm sure he will be Nessie, he can't seem to stay away." I said, my voice dry.

"Stupid mutt." I heard Rosalie hiss upstairs. I tried not to laugh- she's lucky Nessie didn't hear her. Nessie was getting touchy about how various members of our family treated Jacob- lucky for me, she doesn't remember when I lunged for Jacob's throat after totally and inexplicably losing control, I still felt slightly bad about breaking Seth's arm, but it had healed perfectly and I had learned my lesson, so beating myself up about it was worthless.

There was a knock on the door and Jacob came through, followed by Charlie. I took a breath before his scent saturated the room and tried not to listen to the delicious promise his beating heart held. His eyes widened and I mentally cursed myself about not changing clothes- or wearing contacts. Hopefully he'll ignore the change of eye and only see all the destroyed clothing. Although how anyone could miss the eyes... I don't know, "Whoa, Bells- are you okay?" _I think it's the claw marks in the jeans that are freaking him out. It's definitely not the eyes, _I told myself stubbornly.

"Need to know Dad, and this _really _falls into the need to know column. I'm fine, not a scratch. See?" I twirled around, seeing the disbelief on his face. I mentally winced at my mistake. I had just given him a view of just how destroyed my clothes were, and a view of how totally un-destroyed I was. "I'm going to go get cleaned up, be right back."

Charlie shrugged, very obviously trying not to think about it. I jogged up the stairs at human speed, taking a shower and getting all the mud out of my hair, I carefully selected the contacts, grabbing a few extra sets in case Charlie stayed for as long as usual.. I looked into the closet and chose a long sleeved white sweater and a black skirt, the most normal things I could find. I went and walked back down the stairs. Charlie looked relieved at my apparent normalness.

I bet I sure looked relieved at my apparent normalness.

The T.V. was on and there was a baseball game playing, I didn't bother looking at the teams- although my memory was good I hadn't exactly had the opportunity to study baseball teams what with the Volturi coming for a visit and all. All of the guests had only left three days ago. I still get shivers of terror when I think about how close we were to getting wiped off the planet- or worse, ending up in the guard for all eternity

Charlie looked around, "so I take it all the guests have left then?"

I nodded, "yep," I hesitated, unsure of how to go on, but Jake solved the problem for me.

"It's about time too," he laughed, "at least the Drac-"

I cut him off before he could say 'Draculas one and two,' "we're on a need to know basis, remember Jake." I hissed too quietly for Charlie to hear, louder, I said, "Jake, just because you didn't like them doesn't mean the rest of us didn't either. They were all nice."

"To you maybe," muttered Jacob.

Charlie however, hadn't noticed the awkwardness of the topic, and continued to ask questions about our guests, figuring that if there were others involved it was a safe topic, "so what were they here for anyways. You were rather preoccupied by all of them, and they were here for an awfully long time."

"Family reunion," I said at the exact same time as Jacob said, "funeral." We both looked at each other, and I could see Jacob mentally swearing.

"Need to know?" was all he said.

"Oh, yes." We both said.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: And now we have the very over-clichéd plot of the Cullens moving to a new town. Don't worry though, I promise that things are going to start getting very interesting very soon. **

**Chapter Two- Ripples in the Water**

**Bella POV**

I wrapped my arms around Charlie, trying not to breathe while talking. "We'll still stop by to visit Dad, it's not like we're going to disappear off the face of the planet. You know where we're going, you could even come and visit us if you wanted."

It was time for us to relocate, Nessie still wouldn't be able to go to school, but some raised eyebrows were starting to develop in Forks because of how none of seemed to be in school, and how Carlisle had quit his job in the hospital and we still managed our high standard life style. The last thing we needed right now was to give Aro a chance to re-visit Forks. He'd have us in rights too if he decided to visit now, in a small town like Forks gossip travels easily and we were creating far more rumours than we should. It's lucky we hadn't found out about the rumours a week ago, then Aro would have read them and we'd all be dead.

We would be heading for the small town of Salvage on the east coast of Newfoundland, Canada. The fog there would provide the same kind of protection that the clouds in Forks would and protect us from the sun's glare. There was a National Park next door, so we would have lots of area to hunt and go hang out on sunny days.

"I know Bells," he sighed worriedly, "I just can't help but feel like you're about to disappear again." I tried to signal to Jasper so he could send some calming waves in his direction. Desperate, I tried lifting my shield to send Edward a message, but I still had problems getting it up, and I couldn't concentrate on not drinking Charlie's blood and on lifting the shield at the same time.

Jasper, sensing the worry coming off of me, sent waves of calm at us. I looked at him with relief and he winked at me.

I laughed, relieved that Jasper had finally got the message, "Trust me dad, if I wanted to disappear we would have faked a car crash- not disease. Really, Jake will always know where we are, and we all know how much he wants us to still know how the other is doing. His little wolfy trick that he showed you proved that."

"You'll call when you get there?" he insisted.

"Of course," I reassured him. "If you think it would help."

He nodded, stepping back, "it would. Thanks Bells."

I inclined my head at him slightly before climbing into the car beside Edward. We began to pull out of the driveway, I waved goodbye and tried to pretend that I didn't see the misty look to Charlie's eyes. I watched as Forks flew past the window. Everything in my life in the past two years had happened in that small, rainy town. And ironically enough, none of the small population had never found out about what had really happened- there were very few people who could understand how truly amazing this town was.

Renesmee was asleep in the back of the car, her pale lavender eyelids shut over her eyes and her brown hair splayed across the clothing bag she was using as a pillow. Edward had his hand on the clutch and my hand was on top of his.

I wasn't bothered by Edward's driving speed anymore, I could understand now that when you're a vampire it just _isn't _fast at all- the speed our bodies function at make it feel normal, and driving slow definitely makes you feel like you're driving slow, like you're crawling down the road. I don't know how Edward put up with it- I would have grabbed the steering wheel and just started speeding down the road, regardless of the human's protests.

We were almost at the border, I looked at Edward, "We did get new passports, right?" we would have a bit of a problem getting across the border with old passports since Nessie and I had both changed so much.

Edward nodded, "of course, love." He chuckled, "after what happened last time we tried to jump the border I doubt Jasper is going to forget to pick them up ever again."

"What happened?" I asked morbidly, some of the situations my family can get into are hilarious.

"It was right after they changed it so that you had to have a passport to cross. We were moving to Forks and Jasper forgot to pick them up and they stopped us at customs. We turned around and drove to a part of the border where there were no humans manning it. We waited until nightfall and jumped over it- literally, it was marked by a river- carrying the cars and all. What we didn't know was that there was a camera, and jumping over a twenty-foot wide river carrying cars is more than slightly revealing. A few weeks later we got a call from Aro, telling us to deal with it before _he _did. So naturally, we snuck into the building and destroyed the tapes- problem solved. Aro really wanted to bring that up a few weeks ago, but he knew that since we fixed the breach there was nothing he could do."

I winced, close shaves like that made me more nervous than you could possibly imagine.

Edward shrugged, "no blood, no foul. No harm came of it, don't worry so much Bella. The Volturi will wait centuries before they decide to try taking us on again- we sent them scurrying back to Volterra, that's not something they're going to want to relive." He finished absently, looking out the window with his eyes narrowed as if he had seen something. I peered passed him, looking into the forest- even though at the speed we were going we'd be long past whatever had caught his attention.

"What did you see?" I asked, unable to hear or see anything out of place in the huge expanse of wet woods we were speeding past.

"I'm not entirely sure I saw anything," he said, turning his eyes back to me, "It was just a flash of something, and I heard that same strange language I did a few nights ago when we were on the cliff. I'd stop to check it out, but..." he glanced back at Renesmee and I understood- I'd never do anything to hurt Renesmee either.

"We could always drop her off with Carlisle and Esme, and the head back here to check it out." I suggested. I was insanely curious about it actually.

Edward shook his head, "I don't think it's really necessary. Whatever it is, it's not bothering anyone, and every time we stick our hands into something we risk letting humans know." I nodded, agreeing with him- it's not like we don't have enough problems as it is.

I realized something, startling a laugh out of myself. Edward looked at me, "what is it, love?" he said curiously.

"I just realized something," I explained, "after you said we shouldn't go check it out I mentally went, '_it's not like we don't have enough problems as it is_' and I just noticed that for once in my life I don't actually have any big, looming problems that I have to deal with."

Edward laughed too, "finally. Let's just live in the here and now and try not to pick any up- okay?"

"Definitely!" I cheered.

We continued driving along the road, I watched as the landscape changed from big leafy trees with lots of green, to flat farmland with occasional smatterings of bush, to hilly land with rocky soil and small trees. We drove continuously; there was no point in stopping. Eventually I could smell the ocean and knew we were getting close to where we were going.

Our group had crossed the border ages ago with no difficulties; I was definitely a lot more relaxed after that. You can't help but wonder what would happen if Jenks made one tiny slip up on the papers- would they track our family back to its roots and discover that some of us were centuries old? And if they did that, then what would happen- would they tell the media and get the story so big that even the Volturi could do nothing about it? Would we be able to destroy the knowledge before anyone found out, or would the Volturi move in and deal with the problem- us included- before we even had a chance to run?

After that mental line got to the 'and we all die' part, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie and stop thinking about it.

We pulled up a long driveway, leading into a clearing filled with sunlight and long flowing grasses. The clearing sat on a cliff looking over the ocean, the air smelled of salt and you could hear the crashing of the waves as they pounded the rocks mercilessly. Off to the left of the clearing- safely away from the edge of the cliff- a large house sat nestled in the forest. Yet another cliff loomed up behind it, surrounding the house and clearing in a protective circle of land.

The house itself was- unsurprisingly- huge and elegant. It was three stories, although I'm guessing the top story was just the attic. It was built into the cliff that was behind it. I opened the front door to the car and climbed out, looking in amazement at the area around me. I saw Edward open the back car door and lift Nessie up, she opened her eyes wide and her lips made a tiny 'o'.

"Mommy, Daddy- it's really beautiful." She said, the shocked look morphing into a grin.

"Why don't we go have a look around inside?" I suggested. We did that, opening up the small front door. There was one big central room that had the living room and kitchen in it; there were several rooms on both sides of the room. Up the stairs from that room there was a hallway with several bedrooms and bathrooms attached to it, we walked down the hall.

At the very end of the hall there was a narrow passageway that branched off to the left of the hallway. We followed it curiously; this wasn't something that Esme would normally put in the house. There was a door at the end, which opened up to a spiral staircase built into the cliff. When we got to the top we threw the trapdoor open. I let out a gasp of amazement.

We were on the top of a plateau, you could see over the ocean and around the house. If you turned around you could see over the landscape, the view was amazing. I imagine we'll be watching plenty of sunrises up here- I've never seen anything like this, it's truly stunning. I bet Renee and Charlie would love to see this.

I remembered that I had to call Charlie, "Edward- can I borrow your cell phone please, I have to call Charlie and mine is in the car."

He nodded, "Of course love- here." He pulled it out of his pocket and passed it to me.

"Thanks," I said. I dialled Charlie's number into the phone, he picked it up after the first ring.

"Bells?" he asked hopefully. I felt guilty at the tone of his voice, he must have been sitting by the phone, just waiting for me to call.

"Of course! Hey dad, how are you doing?" I said cheerfully.

"I'm doing great Bells." He replied, "How's the house looking?"

"Amazing," I gushed, "Esme chose perfectly. Wait- Renesmee wants to talk to you, I'll give her the phone." I passed the phone to Renesmee and listened to her babble at Charlie for a few minutes before I went to talk to Edward.

He was looking out over the horizon, I leaned into him and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "This is perfect." I murmured, inhaling his scent.

He nodded, agreeing. "It's even more perfect with you here." He said warmly. If I was a human then I'd be bright red, I was glad that I could go through life now without looking like a tomato.

We heard our family drive in, exploring the house. Eventually everyone was back in the house. They all found the stairs that we had, and eventually everyone was up on the roof. Jake was the last to arrive, pulling in on his motorcycle about an hour after we arrived.

"Grandma, this house is amazing!" exclaimed Renesmee when Esme and Carlisle climbed up onto the roof. Everyone else agreed- the house was truly amazing.

"Thank you, dear. I thought you would like it." replied Esme, hugging her grandchild. "And I'm happy everyone else likes it too."

We all spent a few minutes comparing our trips; Jacob had had the hardest time getting across the border. That wasn't surprising considering he's almost seven feet tall, more than slightly intimidating and came across the border riding a motorcycle- those are generally looked down upon by the general human population. At least he isn't covered in tattoos.

"We had the strangest thing happen though," I began after Carlisle asked us how our drive went, "you remember how a few nights ago Edward and I went hunting and we saw that strange light in the woods, and Edward heard the strange minds?" I asked, and they all nodded. We had told them the story after Charlie left for the day.

"Well, when we were driving past those same woods we saw something flash off something that looked like metal, and Edward heard the same thoughts again." I said, I couldn't help but wonder what it is. "Alice, I know it's not really any of our business, but I am insanely curious and if it grabs Aro's attention then he might blame it on us for an excuse."

Alice rolled her eyes laughing. "That's an excuse and you know it. You're just curious, you always have been Bella- we don't expect you to be mature, I mean, you're only married with a child now..." she teased lightly until I threw a chunk of grass at her laughing.

Everyone was lounging around on the cliff; Nessie had dragged herself to bed about a half an hour ago.

"Alice, there's nothing immature about being curious," I pouted, not really succeeding since I was still grinning.

"There is about that pout on your face though- Bella, your puppy dog eyes kill now that you eyes are gold. Give me one second and I'll check." She frowned, "Dog," she said to Jacob, "you weren't planning to involve yourself were you?"

He shrugged, "not me personally, but it's happening around Forks where there's an insanely large number of shape shifters. And now that you've left they've moved to include Forks in their territory, so if you can't see- don't blame it on me."

Alice nodded, "okay, there's you answer Bella. Either aliens are attacking the earth, or it's just the puppies playing in the woods. Those are the only two things that'll block my vision over there. I'm personally betting that it's the puppies."

I nodded sardonically, agreeing, "I bet it's the puppies too. As I said earlier- Why would any alien in their right mind land in _Forks, _not only is the weather appallingly grey, but nothing ever happens there unless you happen to be in on the world of mythical creatures. And there are an overbearing amount of shape shifters there; especially since all our _friends_" I threw a look at Jacob, daring him to contradict me on that part, "came to save us from certain doom."

Jacob rolled his eyes, "yes, because Dracula one and two really wanted to help us. Face it Bells- you know that they just wanted to watch the Volturi make fools of themselves."

"I've never disagreed with you on that point, they kind of creeped me out a bit. Okay, more than a bit- I've never seen two people more caught up in the destruction of others. It was decidedly eerie." I shuddered. 'The Draculas' as Jake liked to call them were long past sanity.

"Finally, Bells sees sense!" cheered Jacob. I stuck my tongue out at him.

"Does anyone know when Zafrina and her sisters are visiting?" I asked. I had taken a liking to the amazons. They were genuinely nice once you looked past how intimidating they looked, I had become friends with Zafrina and I know Renesmee loved all three of them. Everyone in the family got along with them great.

"I think they were planning on coming to visit this Christmas." said Esme, "I was on the phone with them a week ago, and they don't want us to make a big fuss. Zafrina told me to tell you that specifically Alice. So they're just planning on dropping in."

"Awesome!" said Emmett, "I've wanted to talk to Kachiri for ages, she has this really awesome fighting move that she never got around to showing me. We just ran out of time."

I looked at the sun setting behind us. "Hey guys," I said, "look at how nice that sunset is. I bet the sun coming up tomorrow morning will look amazing." Everyone agreed with me and we all turned to look at the setting sun.

We spent the night in a similar fashion, laughing and talking about what happened in Forks. Eventually the sun started coming up over the horizon. I was right, it was spectacular. The sun turned the sky a rainbow of colours, from deep violet to light blue. The water looked like black velvet. We watched it until it had risen high into the sky. Then we all got up and went inside, to unpack our things and make this beautiful place our home.

I don't think very much needed to be added, this felt like home already.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: And now we get to the fun part of the story where things start getting interesting. Have fun, and review please.**

**Chapter Three- Double-Edged Irony**

_**Bella POV**_

It's been about three days since we moved here, I was helping Esme paint my new bedroom, Edward's room was right beside mine and they were connected by a bathroom. My clothing was covered in streaks of paint; I had been helping Esme with various things all over the house all morning. Luckily I had thought far enough ahead to wear old clothes and tie my hair back. I had the sleeves on my shirt rolled up, I still felt as if I might spill paint all over myself, even though I knew all of my klutzy problems were solved.

It was beautiful outside today, there were a couple of worried glances that this kind of weather was normal, but no-one minded that much. We weren't enrolling in school here, and short of going into town to buy supplies we wouldn't be going into town much.

Our story- if anyone bothered to ask and that was highly unlikely- was that it was just Carlisle and Esme living here and the rest of us were in university. This was just a place for Nessie to grow up and for us to relax before we went back to being in the human world. We could just wait until cloudy days to buy what we need, or we could just send Jacob into town for us.

I could just see the fight Rose could start with that, _"Go fetch these shoes from town dog."_ And things would go downhill from there, just like they always do.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if it was sunny like this every day. All the windows and doors to the house get opened, and the smell of warm grass comes in. Everything is so warm and everyone is happy looking, it feels so nice to have the sun shining off of me.

A faint breeze went through my hair as I went to put another coat of blue paint onto the wall. The rest of the family was busy with other things, Emmett and Jasper were whitewashing the walls outside (they were getting more paint on each other than the walls), Renesmee and Edward were putting pots and pans away in the kitchen, Alice was putting all of our clothes away, Jake was outside in the yard helping Carlisle build a fence around the gardens Esme wanted, Rosalie was putting green paint on the shutters of the house- Esme wanted to go for an Anne of Green Gables look this time.

Just as I finished putting the last bit of paint on the walls in my room when the phone started ringing, "Do you want me to get that?" I asked Esme.

She nodded, "Sure, I'll just finish up here and then we can go paint Rosalie's room. She wants it done in a deep purple."

I smiled, "and Rosalie once again demonstrates perfect taste." I chuckled, knowing that Rose would hear me. Esme winked at me, automatically seeing what my ulterior motive was- make Rosalie as happy as possible, if Rose is happy, then everyone (except Jake sometimes) is happy.

I picked up the phone, "hello?" I asked, taking care to make my voice sound like Esme's in case it's someone I used to know in Forks. Or Renee calling, she still called to chat with Esme every once in a while.

"Hey Esme, it's Charlie, I don't suppose you could give the phone to Bella for me." he asked.

"It's me, Dad." I chuckled, letting my voice go back to normal.

"Oh... hey Bells. I don't suppose you'd tell me why you disguised your voice- that kind of thing makes a cop suspicious, you know." He teased, his voice light.

"Oh, it's just that it'd probably raise a few eyebrows if I miraculously recovered from deadly tropical disease and now sound better than ever." I said dryly.

"Ah," he said, "So anything interesting going on over there?"

"Not really, we're just unpacking. Emmett and Jasper are trying to paint the outside of the house; they're getting more paint on each other than on the walls. You know how teenage boys get." I joked.

"I do," he chuckled.

"Anything interesting happening over there? We've been pretty isolated here."

Charlie's voice wavered, "no, nothing interesting is happening here Bells." I wonder why he would lie. "Anyway Bells, I've got Billy over here too. He was wondering if he could talk to Jake."

"Of course." I said, wondering what it could possibly be, something was obviously bothering him, "one second and I'll go give the phone to him." I walked out of the house and went to go give Jake the phone- I was also planning on standing close enough to eavesdrop.

_**Jake POV**_

I watched as Bella came out of the house, phone in her hand. "Billy wants to talk to you Jake." She said, not bothering to shout since she knew I could hear her from across the yard.

"Thanks Bells," I said, grabbing the phone from her. My hand brushed up against hers, freezing cold against my burning skin. I marvelled at how I didn't jump away from the contact, and how I could stand the stench- it's like constantly inhaling ammonia. "Hey dad," I said, "What's up?"

"Have you been watching the news lately?" was all he said. I heard all the leeches go silent and walk over so that they were all lounging around us. Nothing scares them more than thinking that someone's exposed their existence. After meeting the royal bloodsuckers I can't say that I blame them- the Volturi are seriously creepy.

"No, the weather is awesome here. We've been outside the whole time. What's happened over there?" I asked.

"Well... you can go ahead and call me crazy, but... aliens are attacking Forks." He mumbled, sounding embarrassed to be saying such a thing.

We all looked at each other in shock. Bella started laughing- she's always had a pretty strange sense of humour, I guess. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but this seems like a pretty strange thing to be laughing about.

"We believe you. Is there anything I can do to help?" Jake said, he sounded worried.

"No!" said Billy sharply, "I called to tell you to do the exact opposite. As soon as we figured out what happened, Collin asked Sam if he could go check it out, Sam told him that he'd rather Collin didn't, but he saw no reason not to. Collin saw them taking samples of the land. They were humanoids; they were blue and seemed to flash with electricity under the skin. He tried to get closer and see exactly what happening. One of the creatures saw him and stopped his heart. All the energy seemed to gather under the skin in his hand, and then it flew out and hit him. It was just like what that blond leech- Kate- could do, except ten times stronger and they can shoot it like a gun."

Emmett let out a low whistle. I frowned; I was trying not to think of Collin. Right now I was just going to concentrate on keeping people alive. "What are the humans doing?" I asked.

"They're running. The government saw what was happening and sent in an armed force. The creatures killed them all. We're evacuating Forks, everyone is running to Seattle. In the USA they've been trying to get people to evacuate to a refugee camp in New York- they've found these ships everywhere from Oklahoma to Hawaii. The only places not affected are New York and Alaska- no one knows why that is. They also started searching for other creatures in other places, they've found about fifty other groups all over the world."

"All this in five days?" I asked. The situation must be escalating quickly. This is looking really, really bad.

"Yes. Some of the other ones were found about a week and a half ago, after people saw strange lights falling from the sky." That would be right about when Bella and Edward saw that thing land in Forks. Damn, I wish the leeches had been the first to check it out.

"So do we, Jake." said Edward, his voice horrified, "we don't have hearts to stop."

Billy spoke into the phone, echoing Edward's thoughts. "Could the leeches maybe do anything- their hearts don't beat, so there would be no risk of them getting hurt."

"One sec, they've been listening. I'll pass the phone to Carlisle."Jake replied, passing the phone to Carlisle.

Carlisle sighed, all the leeches were looking at each other hopelessly. "Honestly Billy, if the media weren't involved then I'd say certainly. But you've seen the Volturi's obsession with secrecy, and with wiping us off the face of the planet. We'll look to see what kind of solution we can find, but we can't expose our race to save humans- the Volturi would just kill whatever humans we saved to keep the secret. I'm sorry, I'm really, really sorry, but unless we can find a way to do it out of the public eye then it'll be a wasted effort."

"It's alright. I know you'll try." Billy said gruffly, still not quite willing to trust the Cullens. Carlisle passed the phone back to Jake.

"Are you okay, Dad?" I said worriedly, "is there anyone who needs help. I can always come back." I wish that I could stay with Nessie, but if the pack needs my help...

"No, we're all staying in a hotel in Seattle. It's big enough to hold pretty much the entire population of Forks, so we've just rented the entire place out. That keeps us out of the refugee camp they've been shoving people into up by New York. Apparently it's pretty shady there. I'm not sure what'll happen after, we'll run out of money pretty soon, the initial cost for renting the hotel almost sucked us dry, and once that happens I'm not sure what we'll do. Everyone is looking for jobs, but that'll take a while."

"Jake," said Carlisle, "if they're short on money we can give them some until they've all got working jobs. That may be the one thing we can do to help. They've just rented the entire hotel, right?"

"Come on, not even you have that much money." I laughed.

"Jake," said Alice, "I 'm psychic, remember? I make a pretty big dent in the stock market."

"Billy, the leeches are begging to let them help you financially, I'd just give in- they did the same thing to me when I was protecting Bella- they won't give up until they've made you suitably comfortable. They do that when they get guilty."

"They'd never be able to support eight hundred people Jake. The hotel is renting to us at five thousand a week, which is a very good considering there's nine floors, and the owners have pretty much just left it to us. We still need to buy food and clothing too. We'll be able to get ourselves settled in about three weeks, but that's over twenty five grand."

"They've been letting the psychic bloodsuckers play on the stock market- trust me, they can afford it... They say they don't want to let you bust your savings on this when there's no point." I added when Carlisle told me to.

"Awww... Jake..."said Billy, he was clearly not liking the idea with borrowing money.

I cut him off, "this isn't just you Billy. There are children staying in that hotel- don't upset them anymore than necessary. Just take the damn money."

"Fine," Billy huffed.

"I can drive it over tomorrow." said Jasper, "it'll probably be cloudy, and even if it isn't you can just get one of the wolves to pick it up."

I nodded, "They say they'll drive it over tomorrow. It'll be there in a few days."

"Thanks." Billy said grudgingly.

"Bye dad." I said.

"Bye Jake," he said gruffly, "keep Nessie and Bells safe for Charlie, 'kay?"

"I will." I promised.

_**Bella POV**_

Jake handed the phone back to me and we all stood there staring at each other, eventually Jasper stood up and said, "I guess I'd better start driving over there."

Alice looked at him, "you want some company?" she asked.

He smiled at her, "of course."

"I'll come then!" she said decisively.

They went and got into Alice's yellow Porsche, Jasper was driving. I'm not sure how he managed to persuade her to do that, we all know how much Alice loves driving her Porsche. I'm not sure how she can, I remember back when I was human it reminded about our trip to Italy, and that's really not the kind of thing you want to be reminded about.

Renesmee came out the door, she had a slightly confused look on her face, "What's happened?" she asked worriedly, "You all look like you did when _they _were coming. Please tell me that they haven't decided to visit again."

"No sweetie," I said, "it's not the Volturi. It's..." I started giggling again. I was having hysterics, I know, but it was funny. I find it ironic that we've spent the last week making jokes about aliens in Forks, laughing and joking about it. And now that there are actually aliens in Forks, all those jokes just got ten times funnier. I gasped for breath, "There are aliens attacking the planet!" I managed to choke out past the giggles.

"Bella," Emmett chuckled, "you shouldn't be laughing at the misfortunes of the human race. Just because _some _of them are idiots, doesn't mean all of them are."

"I'm just finding it ironic that we've spent the entire week laughing at how no sane alien would land in Forks, and then the aliens landed in Forks. It's funny." Every one groaned, apparently they didn't find it that funny. I guess I'm just being silly, oh well...

"Anyways, how about we go watch the news." Said Rose, "Billy said that the humans were saying all their interesting information on it, so we might as well take a look." Everyone nodded, agreeing with her.

Renesmee rolled her eyes, "yes please. You guys can't seem to hold a conversation about the topic." That just sent us all off again; I picked up Renesmee and gave her a hug.

We all went and piled into the unfinished living room. Nessie and Jake got the couch; the rest of us didn't really need to sit, and there was no other furniture in the room. We all stood around, Carlisle flicked the T.V. on and turned it to the news channel.

It was obvious that we'd been out of touch for the past few days, there were numerous channels devoting themselves to 'alien watch', numerous others devoted to debating why the aliens would possibly come here.

Carlisle had turned it to BBC, it was noon, so hopefully they'd just be starting their report. A petit blond reporter was sitting at a desk looking up at the camera she began to speak. _"As I'm sure many of you know, there have been sightings of hostile extraterrestrials all over the planet. The largest amount are in the USA, they assume this is because of the large amounts of good land, and the large populations of humans that can be found there." _She took a breath and continued, _"Italy appears to be the only country not experiencing difficulties with the aliens."_

"Hey!" said Emmett, "why are the Volturi allowed to play with the aliens and we're not?"

I shot him a look, "because they're the Volturi, Emmett- who's going to tell them to stop?"

"_Refugee camps are being set up all over the world for people being forced to leave their homes because aliens have landed too close by for those homes to be safe anymore. If you see any of the aliens, it is advised that you hide. They can shoot electricity out of their hands, if you are within twenty feet of the alien, then you are in range."_

"I wonder if my shield would block them- it blocks Kate's gift." I said out loud.

"I have no idea..." said Carlisle; you could see him thinking about it.

"_And that, folks, is very bad. The electricity is a high enough voltage that it'll stop your heart." _

Jake snorted, "I think it's worse than bad."

"_Here are the locations of all of the groups that they've spotted." _They showed a map, with tiny red dots on it indicating where the aliens are. There were about two hundred and fifty of those dots scattered around the planet. A few of my family members cursed under their breath, I agreed with them, that picture looked really bad. _"There is a pattern to where they're landing. Areas with low populations and dense greenery, there is always a big city nearby. They never land in the cities themselves, or in areas with super harsh climates and no people._

They then flashed a few pictures of the creatures. They had blue skin, darkening to purple at the extremities and lightening to green at the stomach. Lights were under their skin, but they weren't flashing, the creatures just glowed. For clothing they had a kind of skirt, it was open at the sides and just covered the front and back. It had a holster, and it was holding some kind of weapon. There was something faintly reptilian about the creatures, they had tails and their faces had no noses, just a slight round bump where the nose would normally be. They actually looked a little bit like human shaped dinosaurs without scales. They had no hair, and their eyes were a beady brown or black colour.

Eventually, when the news reporters were just speculating we all stood up and started doing things again, the mood was less happy now, and I felt an irrational irritation at the aliens for ruining my perfect day. I was worried about Nessie and Jake, and Renee, Charlie and Phil. They all had hearts that beat.

There was nothing I could do about it yet so I just tried to push it to the back of my mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: The usual- enjoy and review.**

**Chapter Four- The Waiting Game**

_**Bella POV**_

It's about four days since Billy and Charlie called with the bad news, and in those four days I've learned a lot. I've learned that aliens do exist. I've learned that having a super powerful mind that can concentrate on everything at once is a pain in the ass when you're trying to distract yourself. And I've learned that my bad luck did come over with me when I became a vampire.

You see, just when we figured that things couldn't get any worse- they did. Earlier today we were all lounging around the living room, watching the news had become a daily tradition. When they very happily reported that all of the aliens had disappeared, the news reporters figured that since no-one could _find_ them, they must have left.

All the vampires- mythical creatures that no one has been able to _find_ for centuries-started going 'oh no' the minute they came to that conclusion.

To add to that lovely fact, Alice's sight has disappeared _everywhere _in about two day's time. That means in two days there's going to be enough of whatever-they-are spread out around the planet to block Alice's sight. And that is very, very, _very _bad.

Alice had called the people of Forks, who were leaving Seattle and heading back home, in an attempt to persuade them to stay in Seattle. She had managed to persuade all the Quileutes to stay, but everyone else (except Charlie) had gone back to Forks. So now all of us are braced for things going bad- it's a bit like the feeling you get when you see a piece of glass rolling off the table, and you know it's going to shatter and that there is nothing that you can do about it.

Or seeing a boulder falling off of a cliff that's about to crush millions of people.

It was making things more than slightly uncomfortable, and it was adding to the fear I was feeling for those humans, werewolves and half-vampires (all though the latter two are capable of taking care of themselves... for the most part) that I had managed to meet over the years.

So we tried to distract ourselves from the coming storm, but just like I said earlier, when you have a mind that can concentrate on several things at once distracting yourself can be challenging. I've spent the entire day trying to keep my mind off the problem. Nothing was working though.

Renesmee ran over to me, interrupting my mental rant. "Mom, can I go pick flowers? Dad says I can, but only if you or Jake come with. Can you come?" Edward was busy trying to help Carlisle and Alice figure out what was going on with the _problem._

This might be just the thing to distract me, there was cloud cover (more like fog cover actually) so maybe we could do some other things too. "Of course, Nessie," I had given up on the nicknames. As Jacob had very candidly pointed out when I chewed him out for naming her after the Loch Ness monster, I did name her after _two _vampires, so I was being kind of hypocritical.

"Why don't we drive over to the park and go look around, we don't even need to take a lunch." I said lightly, tapping her on the nose, "we can just eat from the buffet." Nessie giggled.

"Okay!" she said cheerfully. She was the only one here who wasn't upset by the _problem. _We were all being very careful not to bring it up around her, there's nothing she can do about it and it would just upset her.

We both piled into the Volvo, I looked at Esme as we drove past her, "we're going to head over to the park to pick some flowers. Do you want us to grab anything while we're out?"

She nodded, "would you mind stopping at the grocery store for me? Here's the list."

"Okay." I promised, and then we were off. We pulled off onto a dirt road at the back of the park. We drove past a couple of farmhouses where we could hear people celebrating; I resisted the urge to roll my eyes- the humans just don't _think._

Nessie and I climbed out, I looked at her, "So what do you want to do first? Hunt, Pick flowers, or just run around a bit?"

Nessie was positively beaming, "All of them!"

"We can try," I laughed, her mood was easy to catch.

We turned and walked down the path, neither of us had been here before. We were looking around curiously, I took a deep breath- I could smell deer, bears, large cats... this place is filled with game, but no humans. I could smell other things too, the forest, the sea, and something I couldn't put my finger on. It was almost metallic. I shrugged, pushing it out of my mind; some human probably abandoned their car nearby.

Nessie turned to me, "I smell a bear... can I have it?"

"Of course," I grinned at her, "go right ahead."

She took off into the woods and I followed behind her, grinning with pride. She was so alive- I can't believe that I was worried about her a year ago after she was born. We came to a clearing, she jumped on the bear and I stopped at the edge. I didn't want to get to close when she was drinking- she gave herself away to her instincts when she hunted too. Not as much as we did, she was still part human, but that didn't mean that we were never careful.

She finished and looked at me, "aren't you going to get something too, mom?" she smirked, "this _is _an all you can eat buffet after all."

I chuckled; we spent the afternoon running around chasing deer. I can very happily say that I never once thought about upcoming disasters when I was spending time with my daughter. Nessie and I stopped running and stood in a clearing. "Hey Ness," I said, "There are flowers over there. Do you want to go pick some before we go buy Grandma Esme's stuff."

She shrugged, "I really just wanted to spend some time with you," she had a wry grin on her face, "but I'd be happy to pick some flowers for you, mom."

I beamed at her, "I love you Nessie." I said warmly, reaching out to hug her.

She hugged me back, "you're the best mom ever!"

We walked over and looked at the flowers; there was a huge variety of them. There were big ones with lots of purple and pink flowers on the, tiny buttercups, even some daisies. Renesmee bent down and began very carefully selecting her flowers. She was so serious about it, it was like she thought that the fate of the world rested in her choice of flowers. Needless to say, I thought that it was adorable.

We collected our flowers together, and then turned to head home. We were walking down the path, the entire forest had gone silent- even more silent than it did when we were around. I stopped, listening. I couldn't hear anything, but something felt very, very bad.

I froze, my senses on fire. There was something wrong with this... I closed my eyes, listening and taking deep gulps of air to see if I could smell anything. That metallic scent was even stronger; it smelled like burning metal- it was even more disgusting than Jacob's wet dog smell. And I could hear a faint buzzing noise, like the kind you would hear coming from a live wire.

The sound was right behind me.

My eyes flew open; I saw a glimpse of blue out of the corner of my right eye. "Nessie, get down!" I yelled forcing her to the ground.

It wasn't a second too soon, a flash of light erupted from where I saw the flash of blue- from where that disgusting, vile _thing _was standing. It crashed into the tree behind us, setting the tree on fire. I was instantly aware that it had been aiming that bolt at Nessie. I let out a snarl of pure fury. Shooting to my feet, I met the monster's eyes.

It was intelligent, that's for sure. It looked surprised about something, "yeah." I spat out, "I'm not human. No one tries to hurt my daughter - not the damn Volturi. And certainly not _you!_" I filled my voice with disgust, it looked even more surprised. And with that I lunged at the monster's throat. My hand sunk into it like jelly, crushing the head along with the neck. It dissolved into a pool of blue liquid.

I shook my hand, trying to get the stuff off, "Eeeew..." I said, "that's just gross."

"That was awesome!" cheered Nessie, "I mean- did you see how it just went _kaput _when you punched it. Let's go find more!"

Wiping my hand off on a leaf I said, "You've been hanging around Uncle Emmett too much, sweetie. Let's go buy Esme's groceries and then we'll go home and you can tell everyone what happened."

"You promise you won't tell them first?" she said, bending down to pick up her flowers. They were surprisingly unscathed, despite the fact that they had just been thrown into the ground with enough force to crush rock.

"I'll even put my shield up so dad doesn't hear." I promised, I just wanted to get out of these woods without scaring her.

An idea sprang into my mind, pulling out a handkerchief from my pocket I bent down and scooped up a tinny amount of the gloop. When Nessie looked at me I said, "It's for Grandpa Carlisle." She nodded, understanding.

I debated sticking it into my pocket, and then I decided that I didn't want to risk getting the sticky substance on my pants. Not only would it thoroughly disgust me, but it would make it pointless. I doubted Carlisle wanted to try wringing the substance from my pants. I left it in the cup holder in the front of the car.

We headed over to the grocery store, I pulled out Esme's shopping list and we started looking for the stuff on it. I hurried through it, wanting to get back and tell my family what happened as soon as possible. I was nervous; my entire existence was based on protecting those I loved, and I've never come so close to having Renesmee killed- not even when the Volturi came. They at least use logic (although not in a way I'd want to have anywhere near anyone I cared about) instead of jumping us from behind.

We bought the groceries and climbed back into the car, Nessie was munching on a piece of pop-tart. Remembering how much I liked those as a human I had bought them for her to try. And looking at how delighted she looks, I'm guessing that I found her something that she likes. It still smelled good to me; it just didn't smell like food. It's kind of how like flowers smell good, but they taste disgusting.

Esme didn't need that much; our house was still fairly stocked up with food. I just ended up grabbing the basics- milk, eggs, and bread- the usual. And a few things that I figured Nessie and Jake would like.

We pulled into the driveway. I grabbed the grocery bags and the handkerchief filled with alien slime. Esme came to take the groceries; I shook my head at her. "Family meeting." I called, Esme nodded in understanding and we all headed to the living room.

"Mommy killed an alien!" sang Renesmee through a mouthful of pop-tart. Swallowing the rest of her food she continued, "we were going for a walk through the woods and one attacked us." I let the rest of my family see my grimace, indicating that although Renesmee was excited about the encounter, I was anything but. Renesmee kept going, "she lunged for it and punched it- and it _dissolved _into this gooey, slimy mess!"

"That's awesome, Bells!" cheered Emmett, along with Nessie. I levelled a glare at him when I knew Renesmee wasn't looking. He and I were going to have a _long _talk about how he was encouraging reckless behaviour in my daughter.

Renesmee nodded, pleased with the reactions of our family. "Mom, can I grab a pop-tart and then go read in the roof-garden?"

I nodded, "Of course- they're in the kitchen." We all waited until she was suitably lost in her book.

Edward wrapped his arm around me, "So what really happened?" he asked softly. He rubbed my shoulder comfortingly and I leaned into the embrace, enjoying the caress.

"We were heading back through the woods," I sighed, rubbing my forehead, "Nessie and I were walking down a path, and just enjoying the scenery. I started smelling something like burning metal. I froze for a few seconds, trying to figure out what it was. It was horrible smelling, I'd never smelt anything like it before. I'd gotten faint traces of it before; I'd thought nothing of it... I figured that some human had abandoned a car and it was rusting away or something. Damn... I should have known. I almost got Nessie killed!"

"But in the end you wiped the alien off the face of the planet," chuckled Jacob, "Bells, just because you're surrounded by psychic leeches doesn't mean you have to be too." That earned him a glare from Alice and Edward.

I paused for a few seconds, taking a deep breath. "Then I heard a noise, it was like the sound coming from a wire. I pulled Nessie out of the way. It wasn't a second too soon, the _thing" _I said that with total revulsion and hate, "shot a bolt straight for us. It hit the tree behind us and set the tree on fire."

Snarls echoed from my family, they understood why it made me so furious now- an unprovoked attack from behind, on someone that they cared about. It was enough to even piss Carlisle off, and that takes a lot of effort. Jacob started looking like he was about to phase, and everyone else looked like they wanted to kill something- like an alien.

"I lost my temper- okay, that's an understatement- I was _furious. _I lunged for it before it had another chance to get a shot off. It looked shocked, like it hadn't expected me to be able to fight back, and that just pissed me off even more. I was aiming for the neck, but I hit it with enough force that the head went too. I must have hit something vital, because it dissolved into a pile of really freaky blue stuff that absolutely reeked."

Carlisle sighed, "I wonder if it's still there, I'd love to have a look at it." Saw that one coming, I reached into my purse and pulled out the alien infected handkerchief.

I grinned at him, "You know, I kind of figured that you'd say that. So, I scooped some of it up and carried it around it around all day, just for you." I handed it to him.

Carlisle nodded, "thanks Bella, I'll go see what I can figure out." He grabbed it eagerly and went up the stairs to his office where he kept all of his doctor stuff. I wondered if there would be anything that matched up biologically with something on earth, or if it was just some unknown substance. Judging by the way it dissolved, I'm guessing that it's going to be the latter.

"So," I said, looking at Emmett, narrowing my eyes and taking a few steps towards him, "why are you teaching bad habits to my child? I don't know if you've noticed Emmett, but she is not indestructible like you! Stop trying to make her do reckless things."

He grinned at me wryly, "Bella, I'll never make her do anything reckless. This way though, she thinks that I'm never going to stop her from doing anything dangerous. Hopefully, if she ever goes to do anything truly stupid she'll tell me first and I'll be able to get you to stop her."

My mouth fell open, "Oh... sorry Emmett. I thought-"

He cut me off, "That's the point Bells- if I'm tricking you, then I'm tricking her too. It's all part of the game."

"Thanks." I said, smiling at him. Turning to the rest of my family I said, "So before I spazz at any of you and risk hurting someone's feelings, are there any other bits of important knowledge I should know in dealing with husband, child and dog?"

Jake looked at me, "Hey!" he snapped, "I take offense to that."

I gave him an innocent grin, "you were supposed to."

He gave me a mock glare, "you're lucky I like you, Bells."

"But apparently you like my daughter more..." I said darkly.

Things continued along those lines until the entire family joined in. Eventually Esme moved in to stop the bickering before it got out of hand (so far no one has been thrown through a wall or window yet- we intend to keep it that way- not that I think that we'll have much luck.)

Edward chuckled, wrapping his hand around my waste he said, "Why don't we leave this riff-raff and go up to our room, Mrs. Cullen?"

I smiled charmingly at him, "Why, Mr. Cullen, that sounds just about perfect."

He swept my feet out from under me with one hand, picking me up and carrying me up to our room. Lying down on our bed he said, "Well, now that we're here... are you up for a game of chess?"

I shot him a look, "You know very well that that is not what we're up here for Mr. Cullen... I suggest you get on with it."

He did just that.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I'm at a loss for something witty to say to make you give me reviews- and there's hundreds of thousands of thousands of stories around here, so I doubt I'd be able to come up with anything original. Therefore, I'll just say have fun.**

**Chapter Five- Take Me Away**

_**Bella POV **_

I leaned against the wall in the living room, Carlisle had just come down the stairs shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like it before." He said, "I don't have the technology here to go any further, but from what I've seen, the cells aren't like anything here on earth. They've doubled themselves in the space of twenty minutes- even though they were totally destroyed. I don't know how the alien just dissolved, I've got some theories..." and with that he and Edward launched into a discussion that was far out of my depth, both scientifically and philosophically.

I turned and looked at Jake, who looked just as clueless as I did. "Errr... I think I'm going to go help Esme in the garden..."

Jake nodded, "I'll come with." We both turned and left the room.

Walking out into the sunshine, I grinned. Alice couldn't see anything anymore, so we couldn't be sure if this weather was temporary or permanent. I was hoping for permanent. I hated the rainy weather in Forks- I'm still surprised that no one there gets sick from the lack of sun.

Esme quickly instructed Jake and I to whitewash the fence that Carlisle and Jake had put up earlier. I wrinkled my nose when I smelled the paint- it was a different type than the stuff that we used inside. I could see why we didn't use it inside- the smell was so strong that I felt like I was about to throw up. I coughed, "Oh... that really stinks." I couldn't even smell Jacob's wet dog smell over it.

Jacob made a gagging sound, "Now I know why Esme put off painting the fence for so long- she was waiting for two idiots like us to do it for her!" And with that I started giggling- it was such an un-Esme like thing for her to do, and it was only made funnier by the fact that it was exactly what she had done.

"Esme!" I yelped, "Why do you want to kill off the garden- this must be toxic." I heard Esme's bell-like laugh from the other side of a hedge.

Jacob and I started painting the fence, laughing and gagging at the smell. It reminded me of the time I used to spend with him in the garage at his house. There was that same feeling of contentment. I just enjoyed being with Jacob- he was still my personal sun.

We finished the fence and ran back inside- as far away from the fence as possible. We walked through the door and Rosalie wrinkled her nose. "What have you been rolling in dog? The reek is burning my nose."

"Now you know how I feel all the time. Esme had us painting the fence with stuff that smelled like crap, so it wasn't even a mutt like me who thought it up."

I rolled my eyes and went upstairs to take a shower. After about twenty minutes I realized that the reek wasn't going to come off with anything except time. I climbed out and dried my hair, trying not to notice the smell- maybe I'll get used to it. Then again, if that happens then my senses might just be dead- or deader... since technically I'm already dead.

I went down and sat down on the couch, everyone else in my family piled into the room. "So who's ready to watch aliens destroy the world!" yelled Emmett. Nine pairs of eyes turned to glare at him, I bet that's a new record for the number of people he's managed to irritate- normally Carlisle and Esme refrain from glaring.

Edward rolled his eyes, "Emmett- that in _not_ a good thing!" he snapped.

"Really Edward," Emmett said mischievously, "I'm just trying to lighten up the mood. After all, if Alice's predictions- or lack thereof- are right then the aliens are going to bring the mother ship down."

I started giggling, our life sounds like a scene from a bad sci-fi movie; 'vampires in space' or something. Emmett smirked at Edward, "'See Edward, I made your wife laugh- I can't be that bad can I?"

"Bella's sense of humour has always been skewed," chuckled Edward, "so that argument is counterproductive for you, brother."

Emmett sighed and leaned back into the chair. Carlisle saw that the conversation was over and took the opportunity to turn on the T.V. We flipped it to the news channel, and it was pretty obvious that something bad had happened. Not 'a hurricane hit' bad, but 'our race is facing extinction bad.' And that folks, is as bad is it can possibly get- our race has officially hit rock bottom.

_Earlier today various giant ships appeared, all carrying the aliens. The all had cloaking devices on them, so they were invisible to the naked eye. After removing the cloaking devices we could see them, and that's when things got ugly._

Various pictures of destruction were flashing up behind her, buildings on fire, crumbled landscapes that looked as if an earthquake hit, people running for their lives... really, I'm wondering if a few natural disasters hit and they blamed it all on the aliens. After all, the earth doesn't care if we go anywhere, it's going to keep acting as it always has.

I looked around the room, "so why aren't the aliens here, I mean, those areas look like a nuclear bomb hit, and here we are with sunny days and singing birds."

Carlisle shrugged, "they've just arrived on this planet- they probably have been able to notice the existence of our kind, since they don't have the reservations humans do. Not only that, but whenever they come up against us they lose- you killed one, and we can assume the Volturi are taking steps as well, since Italy is remaining strangely free of the things- so they're probably waiting until they're stronger to take us on. Also, judging by the pictures, they've switched from hiding in rural areas to attacking cities with high populations- we live in the middle of nowhere, so we're probably not high on their list of priorities."

_The countries most affected are the USA and India- no one is quite sure why, the countries least affected are Canada and Italy. The United Nations..._

We turned our eyes from the T.V. for a few moments, we didn't really care that much about what the UN was doing- it was unimportant to us, we could do nothing about it and it had no affect on us. What we did care about however were the area's most affected.

_There are five of the huge 'mother ships' with about twenty smaller ones that travel quicker. There are two of these ships in the USA, two in India and one in China. This is a map that shows the route of travel for the two in the USA, the lines in red are places that they've already been, the lines in green are where we think that they're going. _

One of the ships was heading up the west coast in the southern end of the country, the other one was heading up straight north, slightly inland from the east coast. The ship was about to hit Jacksonville. "Oh my gosh- Renee!" I looked at Carlisle, "we have to help her!"

Carlisle rubbed his forehead, "okay- fine. We'll help her; we might be able to help others in Florida as well. Just make sure that the humans don't see you. The Volturi are busy enough not to notice us sticking our hands in slightly, but if we make a big display of ourselves then we'll be ash in no time. Jake, Nessie- I want you two to stay here. I definitely don't want your deaths on my hands. Does anyone want to stay behind with them?"

No one made a move to volunteer, "I want at least one person to stay here with Jake and Nessie. Bella, it can't be you since it's your mom we're going to rescue."

Esme nodded, "I'll stay," she said, "I doubt that I'd be much help- we all know I'm not much of a fighter after all. Just make sure that you're all careful- I don't want any of you getting hurt."

I hugged her, "We'll be fine, mom. Don't worry about us- the aliens don't stand a chance."

She nodded and we all set out, in the distance I heard Nessie whine, "but I wanted to see mom turn more aliens to mush!"

I refrained from chuckling- she was definitely becoming too much like Emmett for my liking. Not that I don't like Emmett- it's just that he's indestructible, so the habits that he's teaching my very young and impressionable daughter might not be too good for her. I understand his watching her and making sure that if she goes to do something dangerous he'll know- but is it really necessary to make her risk her life in the process?

Maybe I'm a tad bit overprotective.

We ran down the coastline towards Florida, avoiding all human settlements was a bit of a challenge, but there was nothing we could do about it; we just had to keep going. Eventually- once we were past the border- Rosalie hotwired some cars to make our trip easier. After about five minutes I realized that Renee probably wasn't even in Jacksonville- Phil would probably get her out of there. Oh well, I guess the best we can do is check her house and the school that she works at. I wonder if human schools are still open, or if they're all having an alien day.

Over the horizon I could see a huge, looming black shape. It looked nothing like you would expect a UFO to look like (then again, we've identified what it is, so I guess that it's not quite an _unidentified _flying object anymore) I had no flashing lights, no saucer-like shape, it was just a huge, solid black mass shaped like a rectangular rock. I had no idea how the aliens could get it to move around- it looked big enough to comfortably hold every living creature on earth in it. It blocked out the horizon, forming an impenetrable black wall.

I heard the frenzied heartbeats of the humans in houses around me. The streets had no-one on them, the entire town looked abandoned. None of the humans had had time to flee, they had just found cover wherever they could and hid. I could see why, even as an indestructible, immortal vampire I found that huge black mass intimidating.

I could hear screaming start to come from the other end of the city, Edward pushed the gas pedal down so hard that it threatened to break. Huge booming noises started to fill the air, shattering the world like thunder and lightning. I could imagine where those were coming from. Smoke came over the city- I'm betting that the heat of the electricity from the aliens hands is setting the city on fire, just like it did to the tree behind Renesmee and I when the aliens attacked us in the woods. Another smell hit my nose, something similar to the smell of cooking meat, except ten times sweeter- burning flesh. It took all my control not to gag, I never knew that vampires could throw up until now.

All in all, the once relatively happy city had turned into a war zone.

Edward grimaced, "I've lived for over a hundred years, ten of them spent as a bloodthirsty monster, and I have never seen anything as disgusting as this."

"The Volturi can't honestly expect vampires not to do anything." I spat, "if this continues until the ships have covered every inch of the world, then humans will be extinct- what will our human eating, hypocritical leaders do then?"

Edward chuckled bitterly, "Blame us."

We screeched around a corner, coming face to face with a group of about twenty aliens. Our car slid to a stop, with our family stopping behind us. "This is my mom's street!" I yelled, "We're going to have to go through them to get to her!"

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" hollered Emmett, "Come on Bells- I've been waiting all day for this. Let's get going!"

Carlisle was about to say something, but then the aliens overcame their shock at seeing us. One of them raised a hand and the others followed. Carlisle shrugged, "They're attacking first- even the Volturi can't disagree. I'd say that raising their hands like that is a threatening gesture. We _are _entitled to self defence after all..."

He didn't even say anything else before we all jumped out of the car and attacked.

I went for the first one I set eyes on, it fired off a shot at me and I realized that if the heat from the electricity was setting stone buildings on fire then it would most definitely set me on fire. Our venom is super flammable, after all. I managed to dodge out of the way at the last second, it didn't touch me, but it was enough to stop my forward momentum.

After I stopped two of the others tried to fire shots off at me. I reacted instinctively, throwing my shield up the way a human would throw an arm up to block a blow to the face. The lightning bounced off of it. I didn't stop to think about what that meant about what the lightening was made of, Carlisle and I would have plenty of time to discuss theories when we weren't being attacked by extraterrestrials.

"MY SHIELD BLOCKS THEM!" I screeched over the sound of the fighting, knowing that my family would hear. I sent my shield flying out to cover them all; I know my family can take care of themselves better than I can, but I don't feel like even taking a slight risk that they'll accidently end up incinerated.

After I got my shield up it was a route. All of the aliens turned, fleeing after they realized that their little lightening trick, which had been oh-so-effective on us little earthlings up until now, wasn't working anymore they turned to run. We didn't let them escape, killing them all. What can we say- the earth is a better place with twenty less aliens. It's not like they're supposed to be here, after all.

We quickly stopped to yank off our jackets and wipe our hands off; we didn't want to re-introduce ourselves to my mom whilst still covered in alien guts. Running down the road at vampire speed (damn the Volturi- it's not like anyone's ever going to remember us compared to the super-massive alien spaceship and creepy blue monsters who fire _something _out of their hands) I could faintly remember which house was Renee's, despite the fading of my human memories.

I knocked on the door, "Mom? Phil? It's Bella- me and the Cullens are here to help you. I know you're in there... open the door please?" I could hear their heartbeats speed up, obviously believing that I was lying. I could see why; I was supposedly dead from a disease in the tropics. "If you don't open the door I'm going to kick it down!"

"_Phil... what if it is her? We never did get an answer about exactly how she died." _ I heard Renee whisper, the hurt in her voice was obvious. I had thought a great deal about how much my decision would hurt my family, but with the way everything had worked out I hadn't been too upset, I felt grateful. But in our bubble of happiness two people had been left out (well, three if you count Leah, but there was nothing I could do to help her. I can't find anyone for her to imprint on). I couldn't believe I had forgotten about them.

"_Renee, you know that it's probably an alien. Even if Bella was alive, she would be far too weak to travel. Just sit tight love- you need to look out for the baby. Bella wouldn't want you to hurt yourself." _ Renee is pregnant? How on earth could I have missed something like that?

Oh yeah- I died. Silly of me to forget.

"I'm coming in, Mom. Please don't freak out. I don't want you to risk hurting the baby." I called gently. Reaching forward I turned the doorknob; breaking the lock mechanism and letting the door swing open.

I heard Emmett roll his eyes. "Only you would take the time to break the lock Bells. I would have just kicked the door down."

"Yes Emmett, but some of us have brains, and therefore no need to continuously use brute strength." I shot back. I was _so _not in the mood for Emmett's attitude right now.

"So says the girl who used the brute strength of an arm wrestling match in an attempt to stop the comments being made on her lack of sex life." He replied.

"You lost at that too."

"Children." Carlisle said warningly, "we have bigger problems right now. We need to get Bella's parents out of danger."

"Sorry Carlisle." We both mumbled.

I opened the basement door slowly, the lights were off and Renee screamed. The only things she could see were my half-red, half-gold coloured eyes. I flicked the lights on quickly. "Sorry mom. I should have put the contacts in so that I wouldn't scare you. I just concentrated on getting here, it's not every day that aliens are attacking the world."

Her eyes opened wide, filling with tears. I saw the bulge on her stomach and heard a faint second heartbeat. She must have gotten pregnant right after I died. "B-b- bella!" she burst out, tears running down her face. She stood up and clumsily ran up to me, I caught her before she could fall, wrapping my arms around her. She didn't notice the cold, she was wearing a thick sweater. The good news was that something in the pregnancy had changed something about how her blood smelled- she didn't smell like food.

I realized what I had done, it finally hit me that I had made my own mother think that I was _dead. _What must she have thought, what she must have gone through. And she would've been pregnant, too. I felt the familiar choking sensation in the back of my throat; I would never cry again, this was as close as I could get to tears. "Mom." I managed to choke out, "I'm so sorry. So, so, so sorry.." I continued apologizing.

"Why lie and say that you were dead Bellsy? And you look so different... what happened to you?" she said, her wide eyes meeting mine as she used my childhood name.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Alice popped her head around the door. "Guys- sorry to ruin the Kodak moment, but my vision disappears from the house in two minutes. You know what that means Bella- we have to get out before the aliens get here."

I looked at Renee, "How about I explain on the car ride home?"

She gave me a look that was obviously supposed to be stern, but she just couldn't put enough effort into it, she was practically glowing. "You'd better."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Here you go, if you like it, please review. If you give me enough reviews then I might update early [;**

**Chapter Six- Scary Stories**

_**Bella POV**_

When we got upstairs Alice looked out the window, "We're going to have to run. Our cars just got totally vaporized. Bella, Edward- I'm going to assume that you two will carry Renee and Phil?" she hinted.

I nodded, "Carlisle would you mind staying close by? In case I start to lose control..." I asked softly while picking Renee up like a small child. It would have been easier to make her ride piggyback, but I didn't want to risk hurting the fetus in her stomach.

He shrugged, "If you want Bella- but I don't think you need it. Humans don't smell as good when they're pregnant- the chemicals react funny in their bodies- and you have spectacular control."

"Thanks."

Emmett and Jasper stuck their heads out the window. "I don't think this is really safe for Renee..." Phil trailed off worriedly. I had almost forgotten about him till now.

Emmett turned back, "No worries Phil- Bella has a neat trick that stops their lightening. We'll let her give you the details when you're safe. Three... Two... One... GO!"

We all jumped from the room and started sprinting through the city. I tried to enjoy the experience- I'm never going to get to run at vampire speed in a populated area again. My mom let out a shriek of surprise before muttering, "Bella- you could have warned us."

"Sorry." I said, pitching my voice so that she could hear it over the wind rushing past us.

She realized that my breathing wasn't fast and that I could actually have a regular conversation whilst running at this speed. Diving for her chance she said, "Why can we go this fast?"

"How about I tell you what happened story style, as opposed to answering all sorts of awkward questions and miss a lot of stuff. If you don't know anything after the story, then ask questions."

She chuckled, humouring me, "Sure Bells."

I started, "Thanks. So let's start at the very beginning-"

Right at that moment we were running by the airport. Carlisle saw one of the huge white vans that provided transport when you got off of the plane, the keys were still in ignition. Whatever poor sap that had been working at the time had bolted. Not that I blame him, getting incinerated/captured by aliens is a bad way to go. We all climbed in with Rosalie driving.

"So... I was about to tell you what exactly happened." I began again, "Well, it all started when I moved to Forks. On the first day of school I was sitting beside Edward in biology."

Edward chuckled, remembering the memory. "He was throwing me the biggest glare on the face of the planet while moving himself as far away from me as possible. I realized pretty quickly that there was something up with him and his adopted siblings. My suspicions were soon confirmed. You remember when I was in that crash in the school parking lot; when Tyler Crowley almost flattened me with his van?"

Both of my parents nodded numbly, I realized that they may be going into shock. They had been through a lot today. "Well, I would have been a scratch in his fender if Edward hadn't jumped in and saved me. He ran across the parking lot at a speed that wasn't entirely human and stopped the van with his bare hands." Renee gasped softly.

"I tried to pry his secret out of him and a very _bizarre _friendship ensued. He was trying to scare me away to protect me, and I was being pulled into a mythical world. Alice was backing me up, and that just pissed Edward off even more. You'll notice pretty quickly that he's more than bit overprotective."

Alice snorted, "A _little. _I swear-"

"Alice!" Edward yelled quickly, "Renee and Phil do not need to know about that."

"What?" said Emmett, "If you were going to comment on their lack of-"

This time I cut him off, "Emmett, you'd do well to remember the terms of that arm wrestling match." I hinted unsubtly. Looking at my mom I said, "I'll tell you later, I promise."

"Anyways, one day I went to La Push. Jacob told me an old legend about the _cold ones- _also known as vampires. He believed that it was just a legend, but then again, most people would think that. I decided to do a bit more research, and then decided that the story was true. The only comfort I had was that Jacob said the Cullens didn't hunt humans, they hunted animals. The Quileutes hated vampires; they would have been the first ones to tell me that the Cullens were dangerous. I didn't feel threatened though..."

"So while I was stewing over what to do with this newfound knowledge I went to Port Angeles with a few of my friends. We briefly separated; they went to go look for jewellery and I went to a bookstore. I made a mistake and got lost in the shadier side of town. After a few minutes a few men started following me."

Emmett started laughing, I looked at him questioningly, "Sorry Bells, but Edward is right, just having you in town would devastate a place's crime rate. If there is anything dangerous, human or inhuman, it always goes straight for you."

I shrugged, "Anyways, things were about to get ugly."

"That's one way to put it." Edward muttered under his breath.

I ignored him, "When Edward pulled up in his car and rescued me. Again. We went out for dinner and I asked him some questions. He seemed hesitant, but he answered them. His only request was that I tell him my theory for what he was. On the way back I told him what I thought. In short, I was right. Edward was a vampire."

"It was official, I had fallen for a good vampire, and he had fallen for me. We always joked that was like a lion falling in love with a lamb. Our lives continued down their paths- as sad as it sounds, the first part of our relationship was the most worry free part of our relationship for a very long time."

"It was only worry free for you Bella," laughed Jasper, "We were all afraid that we'd slip up and eat you. And then we'd end up having to not only deal with eternal guilt, but also with a suicidal Edward. Not the best way to live forever."

"Anyways, a few nomads came into town. They were not the good kind of vampires, they hunted humans, and unfortunately for me I smelled very, very tasty- floral somehow, if I remember correctly. It's a little bit awkward to have every vampire in the area commenting on how tasty you smell." I ranted, causing the Cullens all to start laughing.

"Their leader, James, decided to kill me. In the end the Cullens killed him. That was what we believed to be the end of that problem. Edward and I continued down our volatile paths. Being in love with a vampire isn't the safest thing one can do."

Every single one of my family snorted at that, "I took her until she got turned into a vampire to notice that one." Rosalie muttered under her breath. I stuck my tongue out at her.

"Continuing on with the story!" I said sharply, calming myself I continued, "The next disaster stuck when I was at my seventeenth birthday party. I slipped up and cut my finger on a piece of paper. Blood, for us, is worse than any type of crack-cocaine. We smell it, and we lose control of our instincts. We have no rational thought, we just think of getting to that blood. So, I'm sure you could see why bleeding in a room full of vampires is a bit of a no-no."

Renee nodded her eyes wide. Phil was focused, "So what happened?" he prodded. Both of them were totally enthralled by the story. I guess I'm not that bad of a story teller after all.

"I lost control." Jasper said, embarrassed.

"I forgive you for that." I said for what seemed like the millionth time. "Anyways, nothing bad came of it. The only problem was that it triggered Edward's overprotective button. He left to protect me. I went into a downward spiral, he went into a downward spiral too, but I didn't know that. The overprotective idiot thought that if I thought he moved on then I would go on and live my very happy human life."

"We all told him that wouldn't happen," said Alice, "and he knows better than to bet against me, let alone all of us." My parents looked at me questioningly.

"Oh... yeah. I guess I should point out the collective gifts of the group. Alice can see the future. Edward can read minds. Carlisle has super-control. Esme has heightened compassion. Rosalie has super-super-beauty. Emmett has super-super strength. Jasper can sense and control emotions. I can do a little something too, but we'll get into that later." Both of my parents nodded, understanding. Hmmm... I guess it hasn't hit them yet that Edward can hear exactly what they're thinking right now.

"Well, I befriended Jake and things got a little better- despite the fact that he was a shape shifter. I still couldn't breath properly, but at least my heart was beating without conscious effort on my part. After a while though I became reckless- I lived for adrenaline. Eventually I jumped off of a cliff."

My mom's heart sped up, "Bella! How could you do that! Did you even think about-"

I cut her off, "I was not trying to commit suicide! I don't know why everyone immediately jumps to that conclusion. It's hypocritical, especially considering that I would never hurt Charlie that way. He was suffering enough already." I had slipped into rant mode. Taking a few deep breaths I calmed myself down.

Renee snickered, "I never said that. I was just going to say 'did you even think about the risks?'"

My mouth fell open. If I were a human then my face would be bright red. "Oops." I muttered under my breath. "Anyways, that's what Alice thought had happened, she had had a vision of me jumping. She can't see the shape shifters like Jacob, so it disappeared the moment I hit the water. Normally that means the person in the vision is dead."

I winced, "Let's head onto the next part of the story." I said hurriedly, changing the subject. My mom chuckled, seeing right through it. She was taking this very well... a little _too _well. Phil was reacting the way any human would, his breathing was quicker and his pulse hammering in his chest. But my mom was reacting like we were just talking about the weather. "You see, when Edward thought I was dead he went to commit suicide. The only way to kill a vampire is to decapitate them, rip them apart and burn the pieces. It's a little bit challenging to do on your own."

Honestly, does my mom have nerves of steel? I just talked about dismembering and burning a sentient being and she didn't even flinch. Edward said my reactions were weird, but she blows me right out of the water.

"So he went to the Volturi. They're the leaders of the vampire world, mostly because everyone is so terrified of them. God knows they aren't rulers because they have the love of the population. The one rule of the vampire society is you don't ever provoke the Volturi, not unless you feel like dying. So Edward figured that he would piss them off and die. First he asked Aro- the leader of the Volturi- nicely if they would kill him, and then when Aro said no, he decided to reveal his existence to the humans in their city. The Volturi had held that city for millennia, without the humans even guessing. So, doing that would _really _piss them off."

"Alice and I flew to Italy and sped to Volterra. It was probably the single most terrifying ride of my life- Alice drives like she's on crack. Really, don't ever let her drive you anywhere when she's in a hurry. Our speedometer was at two-hundred and fifty kilometres per hour for the entire drive. We screeched into Volterra, had a long conversation with the Volturi. The Volturi hate it when humans know about the existence of vampires. It's kind of an obsession of theirs."

"It's right up there with murder and drinking blood for them." Alice muttered under her breath. "Not to mention the deceit, torture and other fun stuff that- along with murder and blood drinking- come with that law."

She has a point. A very good point- next time they're trying to kill me I'll try to find some way to use that.

"And I was kind of a human. And I kind of new about the existence of vampires. The punishment for that is death, so one way or another I had to die. We got an ultimatum- Aro is fond of those-, either I get turned, or I get eaten for dinner. We chose changing me into a vampire; it seemed like a good idea."

"Aro let us leave, and we ran back to Forks. Charlie grounded me and the Cullens came back to town. Everything was better again, even better than before. Edward had one condition- he wanted me to marry him. I had one condition- I wanted to... well..."

Emmett snickered, "What she's trying to say, Renee, was that she wanted to have sex with Edward. She was afraid that when she got turned into a big scary newborn vampire then she wouldn't be able to experience those emotions anymore."

"That's nothing to be ashamed of Bella- wanting to have a good, healthy sex life is normal for a young couple like you." Renee said enthusiastically.

I do not need to listen to this right now.

Emmett nodded sagely, "Oh I agree, they were very uncomfortable in the weeks before the wedding. Their emotions were all over the place. Just ask Jasper- Alice had to take him out of town for a few days. Their pent up tension was driving him insane."

I really, really do not need to listen to this right now.

Jasper shuddered, "It would have been better for all of us if they just did it. But no, they had to be the hopeless romantics they are and get married first."

"So says the one who married his wife _eight times_." Edward and I shot at exactly the same time.

"Yes, but we were having sex long before that." He pointed out smugly.

"Children..." Carlisle said warningly, throwing a glance at Phil who was looking decidedly green. We all shut up. I cast another look at Renee- she still looked fine.

I looked at Edward and he laughed, "You'll see, love. Just keep telling the story."

"So, we got married and did it. I got pregnant and gave birth to Renesmee." Renee gasped, her eyes lighting up.

"I have a granddaughter!" she squealed. She jumped and wrapped her arms around me. "And you named her after me and Esme... thanks Bella."

"You'll meet her soon. She's adorable- she looks ten, because she's a half vampire she grows insanely fast. It's how I ended up changing- she grew too fast, she was too strong for my body. I died giving birth to her and Edward changed me saving her. And that's the end of the story." I babbled out happy details of Renesmee to her for a long time after that, answering all of her questions about her granddaughter.

I've decided that Renee doesn't need to know about the Volturi deciding to wipe us off of the face of the planet, or about Victoria trying to wipe us off of the face of the planet. I think that that would be way too much excitement for her. It'll just make her worried and she really doesn't need to know about it. Edward nodded approvingly at my decision- apparently he agrees.

My mom nodded, "So what's your gift then? And how do you stand having Edward read your mind all the time?"

I laughed, "Two birds with one stone- my gift is the ability to block all other mental gifts. Edward can't read my mind unless I let him; he's never been able to."

"Most annoying thing on the planet," chuckled Edward, "Bella's mind is the only one I've ever wanted to read, and it's blocked to me."

We arrived at our house; I could still faintly smell the reek of the stuff coming off of the fence, but it wasn't strong enough for Renee to smell. A very good thing, it would probably suck if the humans started throwing up because of the stench.

"Oh Bella- your house is beautiful." Renee gushed, looking around. At the sound of her voice the front door opened and Jacob stuck his head out. _Be right there _he mouthed at me.

Turning to Renee I said, "You have Esme to thank for that. She loves decorating."

The front door opened and Renesmee, Jake and Esme walked out. Renee and Nessie's eyes met. Renee's eyes went as wide as saucers, I chuckled. "Nessie- meet you other grandma. Renee, this is Renesmee. Your granddaughter."

They both stared at each other before Nessie made the first move, walking up and hugging her. Both of them started babbling happily at each other. As much as I hate to say it, with all the strangers that came to our house during the Volturi incident, Renesmee learned how to get someone wrapped around her finger in a matter of seconds. Judging by the way Renee was looking at my child with total adoration after less than five seconds; I'd say that Nessie is the master when it comes to that craft."

I would know, she did it to me the minute I found out that she existed.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Here you go, thanks to all those people who reviewed.**

**Chapter Seven- Lines Of Attack**

_**Bella POV**_

I leaned back into the chair in Carlisle's study, watching Renesmee and my mom play on the swings out of the corner of my eye. They were smitten with each other, something I would have never hoped for. I was also proud of both her and Phil for how well they were taking things- Phil and Emmett were watching sports for male bonding time. Most people who knew the secret would run screaming from Emmett, not watch sports with him.

The fact that both of them were occupied gave the rest of us a chance to talk about what we were going to do about the whole 'aliens are attacking the earth and we're all going to die if we don't do something' problem. Albeit, it's still better than the 'the Volturi are coming to kill us all and we're all going to die if we don't do something' problem. The Volturi are scarier than the aliens. And that really says something about our not-so-fearless leaders.

Jake frowned, "What if you just quietly go and disable their ships? Just find the engine room and smash through it. Bella can put her shield up and protect you, and you sneak onto the ship and free the humans."

"Three problems with that one Jake- it's a good idea, but unless we can solve the problems it won't work." I responded, "Problem one- the governments are monitoring the ships with everything they've got. If we try to get onto the ships we _will _get caught, and then the Volturi will wipe us off the face of the earth. I don't know about you, but I'm more afraid of the Volturi than the aliens. Problem two- we don't know what kind of technology that they're using. For all we know they're ships could be totally indestructible. Add onto that that the humans would need guides to get off of those ships without killing themselves. There's no way to get the humans off of those ships without going into the public eye. Third problem- I think that we should test the whole shield thing before we can rely on it. My shield stops only mental gifts, and that electricity thing that the aliens do is not a mental trick. It's very clearly physical. The whole thing must have been a fluke."

Carlisle shook his head, "I don't think that's quite it Bella. What makes you think it's physical?"

"Two things," I said with a shrug, "How does a mental gift stop a human' heart. And how does it collect electricity. It's like a giant taser gun, Carlisle, not like a gift."

"Ah, but you're wrong on both counts." Carlisle said, "There are mental gifts that can do both of those things."

"But they've never been tested on my shield."

"Actually..." he said, "Do you remember Jane and Alec?"

I shuddered, "Of course I do. How could I possibly forget those two?"

"Both of their gifts can do what you just described. Jane's gift, if she ramps it up a bit, can stop a human's heart dead. Very similar to the way a defibrillator would, or the way an alien from outer space would. Alec's gift collects moisture- tiny droplets of water cling to it for some reason. It's why his gift looks a bit like fog. I'm betting that it isn't the electricity killing the humans, although that alone would do it, but the gift that the electricity clings to."

I fell silent, thinking. "Alright, Carlisle," I said finally, "you win for best puzzle solving again. But can you figure out how to sneak past government security and kill a bunch of aliens before destroying their spaceship?" I challenged. Our family has a bit of a competitive issue- what can I say? It's really fun.

He rolled his eyes, "Jasper and I will hack into government systems to figure out where exactly they've got their cameras. Jacob and Alice, I want you to get Charlie and all the other people staying in the hotel out of harm's way. Use whatever money you need. Rosalie and Emmett, I want you to try to figure out how the engines work. Bella, Edward- try to figure out what happens to the humans once they're in the spaceship. Esme, keep Renesmee and Bella's parents out of the way. I don't want them getting hurt."

He smiled at me, "Was that about what you were looking for Bella?"

I grinned, "Perfect!"

Carlisle looked around the room, "Remember- no letting Renee and Phil in on it unless they ask. I do not want them getting worried. Or worse- trying to ask us why we can't even risk stepping out of line slightly, we might accidently end up having to tell them about the Volturi incident. And they don't really need to know that it's a matter of time until we get handed a death sentence. Plus giving them false hope is a cruel thing to do."

"Let's go then." said Jacob, "besides- who cares about what the Italian leeches are doing. I bet they're so busy protecting their precious city that they're not paying attention to the outside world."

We all shared a look, "What?" asked Jacob, "You all just simultaneously thought of something, didn't you?"

"It's not a good thing, Jake." said Jasper. "The Volturi know the nature of our family, they know that we value human life. Aro is intelligent enough to guess that we're doing something about it. He knows that if he catches us interfering with the aliens, then he'll have the excuse he needs to destroy us. I think we can all guarantee that they'll be watching."

All of a sudden the forest around the house seemed full of red eyes, just waiting for the chance to pounce. I looked around, "Anyone else feeling suddenly paranoid?" I asked my family.

"Hell yeah." Jake agreed, looking down at Nessie protectively. She was still playing with Renee. "If they're watching then they'll have all the reason they need to go execute us. Renee and Phil both know now."

"Cross your fingers and hope that they're bust waging war against the aliens in Italy." said Alice grimly, "I can't see a damn thing, so if they decide to attack then I'll never know."

"My paranoia just jumped ten notches." I whispered. "Let's deal with this guys. We need to get rid of those ships so Alice can see again."

Carlisle and Jasper looked at each other, "We'll get started then." Jasper said, standing up. "We'll tell you what we find."

"You'd better." Jake said with a grin, "if you leeches start withholding info I might rip my own fur out. We have enough problems as it is."

Rosalie laughed viciously, "Let's withhold some info. I want to see that."

Jake didn't deem that worthy of a reply, he just grabbed Alice and the two of them went to call Charlie and Billy.

Rosalie's smirk grew, "I win." Walking into the room and grabbing Emmett she said, "Let's go Em- we've got some engines to play with."

"Make sure that engines are all you play with, sister dearest. As important as it for you and Emmett to have a good time, none of us really needs to hear you doing _that _right now."

"No worries Edward- that was idle fantasy. You do have some of those every once and awhile. Right?"

"No need to have a fantasy, Rose. I get the real thing all the time." He replied, grinning.

Esme shuddered, "And as important as it is for all of you to have active sex lives, I'd rather not hear about it at all, so please don't talk about it."

"Sorry mom." We all said, perfectly synchronized. We all stood up and left the room, ready to go try to figure out what to do to stop humans from going extinct. That would just make the Volturi- and every vampire on the planet- even more irritable, so they'd probably end up killing us for not doing anything.

All I can say is: hypocrites.

Edward and I went up to our room to do some research, "I guess the first place to look is to see if anyone's escaped, then if the government discovered anything. Maybe they've got a spy inside there or something."

"I hope they aren't planning on seeing that spy ever again." Edward laughed.

I chuckled, "I'll take possible escapes, and you take government?"

"Deal."

I flipped on one of the many laptops that the house had while Edward grabbed the other one. Sitting side by side on the bed we looked for possible ways to kill aliens. Yep, two vampires looking for ways to kill aliens. Welcome to my life.

I got something almost immediately, it was a very big story. I'm not quite sure how we managed to miss it. I turned to BBC news first. They're normally a pretty reliable source. Better than '_aliens 'r' '_. The fact that people are going to a site like that shows the stupidity of the human race.

_**Sixteen Year-old Teenager Escapes from Alien Spacecraft**_

_**Anna-Marie Johnson from Jacksonville, Florida was the only person to escape from the spaceship. It all started for her early yesterday morning, when everyone in her city was given the warning to take cover. 'There wasn't enough time to do anything but hide.' Johnson stated, 'all we could do was go to the basement and hope for the best. We could hear explosions and people screaming outside, it was like a warzone.' **_

_**The spacecraft hit Jacksonville at approximately eleven in the morning. First it stopped just outside the city. Platoons of aliens got off and began rounding up the humans, taking them outside of the city perimeter to an open field. There were thousands of them. They thoroughly searched every building, finding every human in the city. After finding every living creature in the city they destroyed it. It wasn't only humans that they captured, but they took the animals through different doors. The ship has now flattened all of Florida- that means it has over nineteen million people in it. It is still capturing humans and placing them on board. Any humans who resist are temporarily paralyzed then dragged on board. **_

_**Johnson was captured in one of the last groups. She said that the aliens were very, very organized. Despite having shoved over a million people onto their ship in the past half-hour they still managed to keep tabs on almost everyone. 'they could tell we were afraid of them, they only anticipated people going backwards- away from wherever they were herding us- I took the opportunity and went forwards before they had a chance to tag me, joining those already tagged. The aliens reacted whenever a tagged person did something, but they never reacted when I did anything. I separated from the group, sneaking away from them and slipping down an abandoned passageway.**_

'_**I saw a picture of what looked like a map, so I took a picture of it with my cell phone. I used it to get out.' Johnson said, for a look at the encrypted map click **__**here. **__**The information that Johnson supplied has been added to the database. For a look at the database, click **__**here**__**. Johnson's story is a heroic tale that helps to give us hope in these terrible times.**_

"Bingo." I muttered, "Edward, look at this. It's everything we need."

He leaned over and scanned the page. "Good find. Have you looked at the map yet?" I shook my head, running my cursor over the page I clicked on the link, bringing up a map that looked like total gibberish to me.

"Well, they're certainly right about it being encrypted." I said, wincing. "It's useless if we can't understand what it is."

"We'll let everyone have a look at it. It won't hurt, and since everyone has perfect memory it's not like we'll have to carry it with us." He said calmly. "Would you mind having a look at that database that they mentioned?"

I went and flipped back to the database, "There's nothing new that we don't already know here." I said.

"Print off the article and the map and we'll just keep looking." I pressed print and sent it to the printer in Carlisle's office.

"Be right back," I promised Edward, pushing my laptop to the side and standing up and leaving the room. I snuck down to Carlisle's office, making sure that Renee and Phil didn't hear me. I was kind of busy right now, and I think Phil is angry at me for putting Renee through all that trouble. I grabbed the papers, and a file to put them in, and slipped back upstairs before they even notice I had left Edward's room. Walking back into the room I said, "I have the secret documents!"

He laughed, "I think I may have found one more. Read this one."

_**Man Takes Photos of Inside Spaceship from Inside a Plane**_

_**Ralph Leary, a sixty year old man, was doing his morning flight in his plane when he saw a large looming black shape in the distance. He flew up closer; there was a large see-through section of the roof, revealing several rooms where aliens were doing everything from eating, to performing tests on humans. There is even a photo of a room filled with glowing blue pods of some kind, just like the ones you'd find in your classic video game or horror movie. Here are some of the photos, be warned however- they are not very nice to look at.**_

After that I would have to say they described it perfectly when they said it was like something out of a horror movie. There were people and animals strapped to tables and being cut open, there was a room where aliens were eating something that looked similar to the toxic substance that Esme had us paint the fence with earlier. Plus there were a few holding rooms and one room that had aliens shooting blue energy at what appeared to be targets.

I guess we're not the only species who practice shooting inanimate objects.

"Good find," I choked out, "It gives us a lot of information, but all I can say is eeeewww. We should get those to Carlisle, he might be able to match them to some medical procedures that are being performed here on earth. We could also see if we can identify what they're eating- it looks kind of like spam..."

"We will, but I doubt it's going to match anything done for medical science." Edward said.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"I've been through med school twice. All I can say is that you can't perform tests like that on somebody unless they are very, very dead."

I winced, "lovely..."

He pressed print and I went to go grab the article from downstairs again. I feel very strange having to sneak around in my old house. It's like April Fool's Day all over again. Minus the fun, competitive feeling of course- now I just felt slightly repulsed by those photos.

Carlisle and Jasper were sitting in his office. Jasper looked up, "Find anything yet, Bella? I'm going to say you've found something not to nice. The feelings of disgust and revulsion rolling off of you and Edward a few minutes ago were enough to make me want to throw up."

"Sorry," I said apologetically, "We found some photos a few minutes ago. They're not pretty 'my little pony glitter stamps' pictures. I'll show them to you later."

Jasper inclined his head, "You're having more luck than us. The security on their system is major tight. We're getting in, but it's taking ages."

I shrugged, "If anyone can get in, it's you two."

"Thanks Bells." I chuckled and walked out of the room, immediately slipping into 'don't let my parents catch me' mode. It reminded me of when I was little and I snuck downstairs in the middle of the night to grab snacks- chocolate chip cookies and milk normally.

I reached my room safely- there were no awkward questions asked. Edward chuckled when he saw the look on my face as I shot through the door. "I think I'll take the next run down to the printer. Does having an awkward conversation with your parents really scare you that much?"

I nodded, it really did. "Find anything else?" I said, changing the subject. Having aliens taking over the earth is real useful when you need to avoid awkward conversations with other people.

He shook his head, "nothing yet. Let's keep looking though. Did you get a chance to talk to anyone else?"

"Carlisle and Jasper are having some difficulties breaking into the government databases. Apparently they're all pretty heavily guarded. They're getting there, but it's going to take some time."

I stuck the photos into the folder and sat down beside Edward again. After about a half an hour I hissed, frustrated and said "This is pointless. We've found everything there is."

Edward sighed and rubbed his forehead, agreeing. "Fine, let's go talk to the rest of them. Esme just took Phil and Renee shopping for food, and Jacob is outside with Renesmee. I believe they'll be busy for a while longer, so it's safe to walk openly down the stairs. Everybody else has pretty much decided to go head over to Carlisle's office too."

"Let's go then." I said, "Maybe we'll be able to take out the aliens today. And all the ships are the same, so if we find out how to destroy one ship..."

"We'll know how to get rid of them all." finished Edward as we headed down the stairs. "And I don't think that anyone will miss them."

"Maybe those people who think that aliens are friends, not bags of blue gloop that need to be popped."

"I hope that lot kill themselves off first. I just spent ages sifting through all the false information on their website for a grain of truth. I am not happy with them right now."

"Agreed, let's go see what the rest of our family have found."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: And here you go. Have fun and review.**

**Chapter Eight- Spaceship Diagnosis**

_**Bella POV**_

We were all sitting in Carlisle's office- again. I wish that we could use the living room. Cramming together seven volatile vampires who know all the details about each other's personal lives is never the smartest thing that one can do. The good news was that we had something a little bit productive to do, which means we probably won't get bored enough to go for each other's throats.

That would be the theory anyways.

Carlisle and Jasper both let out a low cheering sound, "And that is how you sneak past federal security." Jasper said smugly.

"You got in?" Edward asked. "Is there any information about the cameras that they have watching it?"

"Just one automated helicopter for each one." said Carlisle. "We could just knock them out of the sky, I suppose. There are no humans in them, and the humans will just assume that it was the aliens who did it."

"How do we plan to knock them out of the sky?" I asked.

"Ah, my little naive Isabella," Emmett said, pretending to reach out and pinch my cheek. "How often did you go up to the attic in our old house- you know, the part of the attic that humans can't get to..."

"If you're referring to the part of the attic where we keep all of our... slightly illegal stuff, then the answer is almost never. I only went up their once to grab the stuff I needed to pay Jenks."

"Well, if you went up there and looked around then you'd learn that we have a handheld missile launcher. It's being kept in the grotto now." The grotto was an area under a rock that we had transferred all the stuff from our attic to. In order to get into the huge tunnel system that perforated the plateau, you had to lift a twenty ton rock up, so the entire cave system was inaccessible to humans.

That pretty much made it the perfect place to store some paperwork, projects and apparently handheld missile launchers...

"How did you ever get your hands on that?"

"We made it and the missiles that you fire out of it." Emmett replied, "There's also several shotguns, a few machine guns, and some swords. Fun stuff like that."

"Why on earth do we have that? It's not like it'll help protect us against anything. Could you see the look on Aro's face if, for a last resort, we pulled out a shotgun. He'd probably just kill us off to protect the vampire race from our stupidity." I muttered under my breath.

"So, the first part of our plan is to get rid of the helicopter. Bella, Edward- what do we do after that?" asked Rosalie, ignoring my irritated muttering.

I pulled out the file and Edward started talking, "Here's a map of the ship. This is where the girl jumped out of a hole in the side," he pointed at a part of the map, "so we should be able to get in through there. After that I have no idea what we'll do. We have some pictures, and a map. But the ship is so big that the pictures are useless and the map is illegible."

"So basically we jump in and start busting alien face while avoiding humans?" said Emmett. "I'm cool with that." Everyone in the room groaned when he said that. None of us were happy without knowing exactly where the humans were so we could avoid them.

"Rose- did you find out where the engines are." asked Carlisle, changing the subject so that we wouldn't kill Emmett.

She shook her head, "I'll look for them when I'm inside the ship, but until then I can't figure it out."

"Jake, what are your dad and everyone else doing?"

"They're jumping the border and coming to stay in that abandoned hotel a few miles down the road." He replied, "The old owners were on a vacation in Florida, so I doubt that we'll be seeing them again."

Carlisle nodded, "So, I guess we wait until Esme gets back with Renee and Phil, and then we go and kill some aliens. Edward, can I see that map? I want to see if the language can coincide even slightly with something on earth. I might be able to decode the language then."

Edward threw Carlisle a look, obviously responding to something in his thoughts.

Carlisle laughed softly, "You're right- it probably won't happen, but it doesn't really matter."

Everyone left the office, going to separate parts of the house to distract themselves. I spent a while staring at the ceiling- I really need to find a hobby, eternity is going to get really boring if I have nothing to do. Eventually I settled on grabbing a book and going upstairs to read on the cliff.

It was so peaceful, making it impossible to imagine the mess that the rest of the world was in right now. I'm happy we decided to move here- if we moved to somewhere like Florida (not that that was ever going to happen, sunbathing isn't really something that we can do publicly) then we'd be much more involved.

And that would kind of suck. We're involved right now, but only because we want to be.

I pointedly stopped thinking about it and started reading my book again. Forgetting my human memories had a big pro: I could re-read every book I've ever really enjoyed and have it be a brand new story. And that's lucky for me, because until I find a hobby I'm going to have a lot of spare time on my hands.

Eventually Esme's car pulled in, I debated whether or not I should just jump down, or spare Renee and Phil's nerves and use the stairs. Eventually I just jumped. After all, they've seen how fast we can run, and they know that we're not human. If they can put two and two together, then they should know that we can probably jump really high too. Besides, the chances of them _seeing _me jump are slim to none if I make it quick.

I launched myself off of the cliff, aiming over their heads so that I would land behind them. That would minimize the chances of them seeing me 'fall' from thirty feet up. I doubt having your heart start pounding is healthy for anyone, especially Renee, who happens to be pregnant.

I landed silently behind them, and began shuffling my feet as I walked up so that they would know I was there. I can faintly remember being irritated as a human by how the Cullens kept creeping up behind me and then seeming to magically appear because I couldn't hear them coming. It was especially creepy when Emmett did it- having a six-foot something, huge vampire sneaking up behind you can really be disturbing.

Renee heard me coming and turned around, "Bella!" she cried happily. I still can't help but be reminded of a small child whenever I see Renee. I can't believe she's about to have another baby- even though I was her first one.

"Hey mom," I replied, wrapping my arms around her and gently giving her a hug, "How did your shopping trip go?"

"Oh, it was amazing..." she babbled. I half-listened, nodding and agreeing at the appropriate times. The other half of my mind was concentrating on Carlisle's office, where Carlisle was telling Esme our plan.

"_What about Renee, Phil and Renesmee. We don't want to leave them here unprotected." _I heard Esme say, her voice worried.

Carlisle responded, his voice comforting, _"We can always wait a few minutes. The Quileutes and Charlie will be here soon, the wolves will be able to look after them."_

"_Are you sure? You remember what happened to-"_

"_I'm sure, he was taken by surprise. The wolves will be able to fend for themselves easily now."_

"_Okay then..."_

Their conversation switched to other things, I quickly stopped listening- no one needs to hear their parental units doing that. Renee was still babbling happily, "And then we came back here, would you like to see what we got?"

I was pretty positive that she had just described everything to me in detail, but I was looking forwards to some bonding time with my mom- why not now? "Sure!" I replied, making my voice enthusiastic.

I was rewarded with a beaming smile from Renee. She hurried to the back of the car to grab her bags. I rushed over to help her, "Let me get those for you, mom- super strength can come in handy." Renee nodded and obligingly handed me the bags.

We went up to the guest room and I spent a half an hour showering Renee with praise whenever she tried on a new outfit and showed it to me. By the end of it she was practically glowing, and a huge smile covered her face. I felt pretty good too- I just spent a half-hour in an enclosed space with a human (albeit, pregnant and not so tasty smelling) and managed not to accidently kill her.

Eventually Renee got hungry and we went down to the kitchen to grab a snack, Phil was in there too. He cut the sandwich he was making in half and offered one half to Renee. Renee laughed, "I'll just grab one of those yogurts I saw from the fridge. It's more of a craving than actual hungry." She looked at me, "Renesmee wanted to play a game earlier- do you know where they are?"

"In that closet right over there, there are some board games. She really loves monopoly." I replied, passing her two of the yogurt containers from the fridge and a spoon.

I heard a pair of feet come skittering down the stairs and Renesmee darted into the room, "Did someone say Monopoly?"

"I think Grandma Renee might want to play with you, but you'd have to ask her."

Nessie turned to my mom, giving her the biggest puppy dog eyes she could muster. "Please?"

Renee laughed, "You go get it set up and I'll finish my yogurt and join you." Renesmee let out a squeal of joy and went to go get the game set up. I smiled, she was so completely adorable. Renee finished the snack and meandered into the living room, where Renesmee began to happily explain the rules of monopoly to my mom, while my mom nodded seriously, listening to every word as if the fate of the world depended on it.

Phil chuckled, "I still don't know how you manage to make her glow like that. I've tried my hardest, and I just can't seem to do it."

"Trust me; you make her glow too, just in a slightly different way." I responded, leaning against the kitchen counter.

"Why didn't you tell her the secret a long time ago? It makes you both happy."

"The Volturi aren't an idle threat. They've never wanted any gifts more than Edward's, Alice's and mine. If we gave them an excuse then they'd be all over us. Hopefully they won't look at us again for a few decades- the ancients have a peculiar way of looking at time- and then you and Renee will be safe."

"And if they do?"

"We have steps in place for that, we'll keep you and Renee and the baby safe, or we'll die trying." It would probably be the latter, who knows if our friends would help us if we actually broke the law. I think they would, but then again, I'm probably just being hopeful.

"Care to explain the steps?"

"We have some friends. Together, the lot of us are almost as strong as the Volturi." I said shortly.

"Oh..." he nodded, understanding.

The phone started ringing, I walked over and picked it up. "Hello?" I asked.

"Hey Bella." It was Billy, "We're at the hotel now. It's really nice; I'd have to say four stars. Thanks for letting us use it."

"Thank the owners, do you mind if we come to visit?"

Billy snorted, "of course not. See you in five minutes then?"

"Sure." We hung up the phones. Turning to Phil I said, "The Quileutes and Charlie are at the hotel next door. I'm going to go tell everyone else." Not bothering to wait for a response I turned and darted out of the room.

About ten minutes later, we all piled into the cars and started driving down the road to the hotel. It was a short drive, when we were about a half-mile away I probably could have gone on scent alone. The smell of wet dog tends to carry for some reason.

We pulled into a parking lot. I saw Emily trying to pull a box off a truck. I darted over and helped her, grabbing the box. She let out a huge breath of air. "Thanks Bella. I should have waited for one of the boys to grab it."

I shrugged, "Oh well, no harm done. So, can you tell me where to put it?"

She grabbed a smaller box and said, "Right in here. Charlie's looking forwards to seeing you. He was getting worried."

I laughed, "Well, let's go stop him from worrying." The minute I walked through the door I was bombarded by shouts of hello, catcalls and noise in general.

"Hey Emily!" yelled Embry, "We're supposed to lull them into a sense of false security before tricking them into unpacking for us!"

"Well, if you were helping her unpack instead of plotting, then I wouldn't have to stop her from throwing her back out." I called back, laughing.

Embry didn't deem it worthy of a response he just said, "Wow- I've missed you Bella. I can't believe that I missed a leech."

"And I can't believe I missed a dog." I teased back, "especially with the smell."

"Forget the smell bloodsucker- just come 'ere and give me a hug."

I went to walk over to him and a warm force hit me in the back. It was Seth. The hello's continued for a while, but I couldn't find Charlie anywhere. Looking at Billy I said, "Do you know where my dad is?"

Billy nodded, "I think he's upstairs in one of the rooms. I believe it's the third floor, but I'm not entirely sure." I nodded and said thanks before going to go look for Charlie. I could have followed his scent, but in a building filled with humans it probably wasn't the best move to start taking in deep breaths of air. Besides that, following his scent would put me into hunting mode and I'm pretty positive that that would be a really, really bad.

I found my way to the third floor. I could hear voices at the end of the hall, opening the door to the room I saw him and Sue unpacking some boxes. I knocked on the door frame. "Can I come in?"

Charlie jumped about a foot, "Gosh Bella, you have to stop sneaking up on people like that. It cannot be healthy for an old man's heart to start beating this fast. Come on in- how have you been."

"Great, and I'm sorry about sneaking up on you. I keep forgetting that people can't hear me. Renee is downstairs by the way, as is everyone else. I know Nessie is looking forward to seeing you. She even stopped playing monopoly just for you."

Charlie chuckled, he knew how much Nessie enjoyed the game. "I guess I should go talk to her then."

We spent the afternoon catching up, it had only been two weeks since we last saw them, but it felt like a lot longer. I wasn't really surprised by that. Forks had been my true home, I knew we would return there eventually, but until then I would always be a little homesick about it.

Eventually I saw Carlisle take Sam to the side. I thought that he was probably going to tell him about our plan, so I went over too. Renee and Phil were talking to Charlie, and Renesmee was playing a game with Seth and Leah. Despite her hardest attempt, even Leah had eventually been won over by Renesmee. Even she couldn't resist Nessie's charm.

I went and sat on the counter beside them. Carlisle began, "We think we might have a plan to take out the aliens. It's going to take all of us, and we're still not quite sure if it'll work. When we go would you mind having Renee and Phil stay with you?"

Sam shook his head, "Of course not- we'd be pretty poor protectors if we did. Some of us will go with you though. I'll come, and any volunteers who want to. You shouldn't have to do this all by yourselves. It's our problem too. Besides, Jake told me Bella's shield blocks their gift, so there's no risk in it for us."

"I don't want you and the rest of the pack in that kind of danger, Sam." I said, "If one of them manages to take me out, then we would be able to run. You wouldn't do so well at that- you make big targets when you're all the size of a horse." I wanted to go rip Jacob's throat out.

The scary thing is that I mean that literally.

Sam snorted, "Doesn't matter- you leeches don't get to have all the fun. Besides, I'm guessing that one of the big problems is doing this without the humans finding out. The Volturi would just love that, after all, so I'm betting that you're all going to be extra careful. We can lead the humans out after you've killed the aliens, that way we both win."

Carlisle and I shared a look, "Okay," Carlisle said, "But, if I tell you to get out, the get out. I don't want the death of all you on my conscience. Think about who you bring, I'd say that if someone has imprinted then don't let them come."

"I've imprinted..." Sam said, raising his eyebrow.

"You're the leader of the pack; just don't let anyone else come. I don't think we need any suicidal imprintees on our hands." Carlisle said firmly.

Sam inclined his head, "Fine. What are you going to tell your parents Bella?"

I should tell them the truth. If the Volturi catch us then we all go up in flames. "The truth," I sighed, "I guess I should go do that now. I didn't want to give them false hope earlier, but I guess I have to tell them now."

I went into the room where they were, bending down I whispered so that Renesmee wouldn't hear. "We have a plan to take out the alien ships. It might not work, but the least we can do is try. We'll be back in a few days."

My mom looked at me, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

I nodded, "They can't hurt us mom. Really, it's perfectly safe. And even if it looks like it might not work then we'll just leave. None of us feel the need to take unnecessary risks."

"Bella," Charlie said, "If this-"

"It's really fine, Dad. They can't do a thing to us. I promise everything will be okay."

"If you're sure..."

"I am." I said firmly, "see you in two days or so."

With that I turned and left the room, heading for the front door where everyone else was waiting to go kick some alien butt.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Please leave a nice review *gives puppy dog eyes*.**

**Chapter Nine- Valley of Death**

**Bella POV**

I ran through the woods, wind flying through my hair and the speed and clarity assaulting my senses. There were only five Quileutes running with us- Sam, Seth, Leah and two who I had never met before; Raff and Josh, both of whom were newer members of the pack. In a way I was happy that there were only five. There were fewer graves for us to dig that way. They'd already lost Collin, after all.

We had left right after I told my parents where I was going (it would give them less of a chance to stop us from going anywhere, and that's always a good thing) only stopping briefly to grab the missile launcher from our house. Emmett had it in a backpack now, and I was perfectly happy to leave it in his hands. Despite my now powerful mind, using a missile launcher was way out of my league. I'd probably end up setting myself on fire accidently or something.

Josh had thought that the missile launcher was pretty awesome. I like the two of them, they're both loud and spirited, just like the rest of the Quileutes, and they don't have the regret for being turned into a werewolf that makes being around Sam so awkward. They were Seth's friends, in his grade. He had been overjoyed when they turned into werewolves, that way he had some people his age to run with.

We reached the edge of a huge track in the ground. It stretched for as far as the eye could see (and my eyes can see pretty far) It was like a tornado had touched ground here. We all stopped cautiously at the edge. "What could have caused this?" I asked, "The aliens haven't made it this far yet, so it wasn't them."

Everyone looked at each other nervously, "I don't know." Carlisle said, "But it's right in our path. If you hear anything flying overhead then take cover; it might be a helicopter with a camera. There's enough rubble here for everyone to hide easily. Be careful- I really don't like the looks of this."

With those words of confidence we carefully crept out onto the barren wasteland, our senses on high alert for signs of danger. A closer look at the rubble around us showed that it hadn't just been flattened, it was like all the life had been sucked from it. Everything had become withered and barren, and then crumbled- almost as if it had been aged suddenly. Rusted metal pieces and twisting dead trees stretched towards the sky, surrounded by piles of cement rubble. To add to the effect, the sky was filled with murky, dark clouds that turned everything around us a uniform gray colour.

I placed my hand on a half-fallen tree and it collapsed. I jumped sideways, startled by the sudden noise in this soundless land. Seth sent me an amused glance, his muzzle forming a wolfy grin. "This is seriously creepy," I said to him, my voice seeming to echo because there was no other sound to muffle it, "And as a vampire I should never find anything creepier than myself. This is just _wrong_."

Seth let out a low whimper, agreeing with me. He looked at Edward, and Edward looked at me. "He says that it's like all the life has been sucked out of it." Edward translated for Seth.

"I know," I said, "I was just thinking the same thing. I wonder what could have possibly done this- it's like everything just withered up from old age and died, except nothing grew back." We continued on. The silence was pounding against our ears, louder than any noise. The only sound was our footsteps, and the occasional crash when something crashed, making us all jump.

In the distance I could see a black speck in the sky. A slight thrumming noise started filling the air. At first we were all so happy for the noise that we didn't notice what it was. "Guys," hissed Jasper, "That's a helicopter with humans in it. Take cover!"

I was snapped back to my senses. Looking around for something to hide in I saw a place where a wall had fallen over a pile of rubble, forming a fairly large cave thing. I darted towards it, throwing myself inside.

I landed face to face with a corpse. I jerked back and almost let out a shriek, choking it down last second. My breathing came in ragged gasps. It looked just like one of those mummies that you saw on T.V. with their faces all shrivelled up from being frozen for a thousand years in ice or something. Her mouth was open in a soundless scream, with her eyes opened wide in terror. Her dark brown hair was wild around her head, and she was still dressed in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. My hands flew to cover my mouth in horror; I just couldn't take my eyes off of her.

I had no idea how long I stayed frozen like that, eventually I heard people calling my name, "Bella!" it was Edward, I was making him worried.

"I'm in here Edward." I managed to call weakly, "I found a body."

I realized that if they were calling my name, then it was safe to get out. After I realized that then I took off out of the cave, right into Edward's arms. Nothing was going to keep me in there any longer.

As soon as I was outside things got a little better, but I doubted that I would ever feel fully safe until I got every single creepy blue alien away from this planet, most preferably overcome with a bad case of dead. "I'm okay," I told my worried family, "That just really startled me."

I watched as Sam walked over and peeked into the hole. He jerked back, rocks scattering around him with his ears pressing flat against his head. He shot a look at Edward, who translated for him, "Sam says that he admires your courage, he wouldn't have been able to stay in there for as long as you did."

We continued along, now that we knew what to look for we could see that there were bodies everywhere. All of them were just like the mummy in the cave, perfectly preserved with their faces grotesquely frozen in horror. If I were human then I would have definitely thrown up, even as a vampire I felt more than slightly ill. Everything here just felt so _wrong, _it repulsed my very being, as if nature cried out against it.

And if you get a vampire saying that, a creature following no laws of nature as we know them, then that's when you know that something is very, _very _wrong indeed.

Eventually I thought I saw something blue flash in the distance. I held up one hand in the air, gesturing for everyone to stop. The I pointed to where I saw the blue. Jasper mimed putting a shield up and I nodded. After the corpse incident I had kept my shield up full time. Along with giving me something to distract myself with it had also given me a small sense of security. And in this environment, that small sense of security can go a long way.

We crept up on where we saw the flash of blue, darting from cover to cover in a futile attempt to stop them from seeing us. In the gray landscape the colours on our clothes, and the occasional flash of light as a beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and hit us, made us stand out like sore thumbs. We began hearing noises; shrieks that faded off to gurgling noises and large bangs. It was just like when we went to Florida, except there was none of the burning smells. No smoke was in the air around us, just dust and signs of age.

We came around the edge of a tumbling building and I could see the green edge of a forest. A group of aliens were some ways down the tree line. They were working back and forth, like farmers farming a field. Carlisle waved his hand in the air and we all ran towards them in a charge. My eyes hazed over red and I let the anger flow. There were no living humans around us, we were past the edge of whatever city the damn things just ransacked.

They never saw us coming.

There were only twelve of them; we all took one out immediately. They didn't have the time to even turn around. Normally I would feel slight qualms about killing something sentient in cold blood, but I really didn't care right now. It's their own damn fault for coming to this planet in the first place. It only took twelve of them to turn that huge expanse into a wasteland. I don't intend to treat them fairly after they've been murdering children.

Carlisle picked up a peculiar object off of the ground. It had two prongs on it, with a holding chamber on the back filled with blue gunk. I wasn't sure if that had oozed into it when the alien died, or if the blue gunk was what they were draining out of things. "Get all of their weapons," said Carlisle, "We can stick them in the backpack and find out how to destroy them later. In the next town we come to that hasn't been totally destroyed let's stop and grab some more backpacks. I have the strangest feeling that this won't be the end of this."

And with that foreboding note, we collected up all of the strange alien toys we could find and shoved them in the backpack. I looked at the one in my hand, the blue gunk inside of it definitely wasn't from the alien. Is this what concentrated life energy looked like? And if it was concentrated life energy, how much of that energy did it take to make a new alien? How much did it take to fire off one of their electricity shots? These things were like walking disasters. They stole life energy from everything and never gave any back, unless they were killing something with it.

That being said, I bet that that puddle of blue gloop that they turn into when they die (more like when they dissolve...) makes awesome fertilizer. It's not just extra nutrients that it would give off, it's pure life force. It would probably make a good energy drink too- if you could persuade someone to stomach the stuff...

I turned to say that to everyone else, but they were already leaving.

We continued on our way. I felt a lot better once that whole land was behind us and we were back under the cover of the trees, I began to hear forest animals again. Life came back as soon as the stale smells from the wasteland vanished. There was the rustling of trees and sunlight filtered through the canopy around us. I let out a sigh of relief.

We sped up again, no longer needing to be so cautious. It felt good to just run, instead of having to creep along as if something was about to jump us every second of our lives. Eventually the trees thinned out (naturally this time, not just disappearing) and we came to the edge of a town. I sniffed the air, "There are no humans here." I stated.

Jasper looked back the way we came, "Well, with that lot coming towards them, who could blame them. If I were a human and a huge group of life-sucking aliens were making a beeline towards me then I'd take off too."

Even if I were not a human then I would probably take off. All it would take is one glimpse of some of those lovely mummified corpses (all of whom happen to be screaming in anguish) and I would be gone. Any sane person would run, if I had stayed and went 'oh cool, I want to be like that' then my survival instincts would have been even more off than we suspected.

We looked around the town, eventually finding a clothing store that sold backpacks (they were really nice backpacks too, nice and roomy with wide straps) we left some money on the counter for if the owners ever decided to return. We were in the process of unpacking Emmett's overstuffed backpack and putting all of the weapons in new backpacks when we finally got to have a good look at the weapons, wiping them clean with some paper towels from the bathroom. They were very detailed little things, and I was way out of my depth with trying to figure out how it worked.

I was about to put it away when I heard a huge rumbling noise. It was just like thunder. Tossing the gun in my hand to Jasper, I ran out of the windowless back room we were in and went to look out the front window.

I could see a large black object begin to come looming over the horizon. "Guys, there's a huge spaceship heading straight for us. We need to take cover until we can see the helicopter."

Everyone turned and ran (at a human speed, we had no idea where the helicopter was, and if it saw us then that would be beyond bad) out of the building. We wove in and out of alleyways, trying to get a glimpse of the ever elusive helicopter. Maybe we got lucky and the aliens actually shot it down. That would save us a lot of time and effort. By the time we made it to the edge of the town and back into the trees the aliens were almost on top of us. I heard a thrumming noise again, it was the helicopter. It was flying high above us, going parallel with the ship.

I turned to Emmett, "Is the helicopter in range?"

He nodded, pulling out the missile launcher (at least I assume that was what it was) and sliding what I assumed to be the missile in it. He fiddled with it some more, before aiming it up at the helicopter. He frowned and swore, "I can't get a clear shot at it with the trees in the way. One second..."

He reached over and jumped into the tallest tree I could see. He climbed up to the top of it and gave us a boyish smile, "It's like every boy's dream come true," he chucked, "I get to climb trees, play with helicopters and shoot stuff all at once."

Rosalie rolled her eyes, "Just shoot the helicopter Em, the sooner we get home the better." I wasn't quite sure how my sister managed to turn that into a sexual innuendo, but somehow she did, and I wasn't the only one who noticed. Emmett stopped playing with the missile launcher and fired immediately, obviously seeing something in his mate's eyes.

I watched as the airborne missile headed straight for the hapless helicopter, managing to strike it dead center. There was a huge booming noise and the helicopter exploded, bursting into flame. "Emmett- what did you put in that thing?" I asked my brother as he climbed down from the tree. He had a grin on his face that was starting to look more than a little insane to me. I think that next time we should let Jasper, Edward or Carlisle fire the gun. Emmett's false sense of power is starting to go to his head- in my opinion anyways.

He looked at the huge pillar of smoke rising up in the ground, "A little bit of this, a little bit of that," he said evasively, looking around in satisfaction, "I'll tell you later. Maybe I'll even let you look at the toys we're about to steal from the aliens, baby sister."

"You'd better." I muttered under my breath, he just grinned playfully at me and winked.

"I'll even teach you how to build a missile launcher."

Jasper looked at Carlisle, "What next?" he asked, looking at the huge black shape that was crashing towards us. If we all didn't have super hearing than I'm pretty positive we'd all be death right now. The noise thundered up against our ear drums. You know that crashing noise that appears whenever you're in a move and the main character is in a forest and about to get crushed by a steamroller or something?

Multiply that crashing noise by about ten and you'll get what we're listening to right now.

Carlisle looked through the thin tree cover, "Now we get to play with a spaceship, I guess. The entrance we're looking to get into is right there." He pointed through the trees to the side of the ship that was sliding past us. There was a tiny square opening. I wondered why they would leave such an opening. It was an obvious weakness in an otherwise impenetrable fortress.

We all sprinted towards it, flying out of the trees and launching ourselves across the ground into the ship. The opening was a lot smaller than imagined; the wolves had a great deal of difficulty getting through it. It would have been hilarious, if I wasn't constantly looking over my shoulder, expecting a battery of aliens to jump out at us and start shooting. Eventually they managed to squeeze inside. They all shifted into their human forms and got dressed, the boys in just pants and Leah in a small dress. They obviously knew how to run light, Alice could use some lessons in frugality from them.

"Here we go," I muttered. My family nodded and I checked my shield, making sure that it was extra thick so that we would be ready for whatever the aliens decided to throw at us.

We began to walk down the darkened hallway.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: And now, the moment you've hopefully all been waiting for, the Cullens begin to take out the spaceship [= They'll be taking out the spaceship for several chapters, and I think I've got everyone's POV in them. I'll stop talking, and you can start reading now [;**

**Chapter Ten- Vampires vs. Aliens pt.1**

**Bella POV**

I looked nervously around the dark hallway I was walking down; the walls around me were made of a black metal as strong as diamond. We had separated to cover as much of the gigantic ship as possible. The ship was huge, but the range of my shield was even bigger. We had kept on practising even after the Volturi left, and as long as I started standing beside someone when I put it up around them, then my shield could stretch for a mile. I couldn't feel the sparks of life coming from my family and the wolves, so I had lost that small comfort.

I comforted myself with the fact that no matter how thick these walls were, there was nothing that could stop my inhuman strength and I could always just punch my way out of the ship. Brains may be better than brawn, but in my life, brawn can add a hell of a lot of comfort to brains.

I listened, hearing heartbeats down the hall from me. According to the map I would be coming to a huge open space soon (assuming we read the map correctly, but pictures don't need a translation... right?) I came to a corner and pressed my back against it. Peeking my head around the corner I saw something that reminded me of a track. There were humans were running around it, their heartbeats frenzied.

My lip curled up into a disgusted snarl, they were really testing my patience. It seemed to be a testing place of some kind. An alien was explaining something to humans on the other side of the cavernous room. It's voice was stilted, like he wasn't able to form the words properly. "Thisss isss the trrrack, a placcce to exerrrsssize. Complete five lapsss arrround it, and then returrrn herrre, you have fourrr minutesss, ssstarrrting now..."

All of the people in the group were young, healthy and perfectly capable of running five laps without my help. I would have waited four minutes and let them go on before leaving my hiding place, except I saw a pregnant woman running. She immediately fell behind the terror stricken group, panting to catch her breath with her hand on her stomach. As soon as she came go past the gap in the wall I stuck my hand out and pulled her off the path, towards me and out of sight of the alien.

She struggled futilely against my grip, it took all my control to slip and not eat her. The girl is lucky she's pregnant, or else she would smell a hell of a lot tastier. "Relax!" I hissed, "I'm not going to hurt you. I can get you to safety."

She froze gasping for breath and I cautiously let go of her, "Are you okay?" I asked taking a step back so she could see I was 'human'. Well... human to her eyes, and I'm not planning on letting her in on the secret.

She nodded, "Who are you?" she asked, "How did you get free..."

"Long story," I said evasively, "And my name is-"I heard footsteps coming around the track again, "Not important right now. Let's go." I thank the oncoming aliens for allowing me to sidestep that minefield. I grabbed her hand and picked her up (she was so tiny, anyone would have been able to lift her up), darting down the corridors at a human speed until I got to where the hole in the wall was.

Carlisle was there, and for that I was grateful. I could dump the pregnant woman on him and go kill some aliens. I was about to say his real name when I realized what a bad idea that would be, if this woman ever repeated the story and told someone Carlisle's name... well, how many veggie vamp doctors do you know? I put the woman down and said, "Carter, would you mind looking after her. I'm going to go stop the aliens that were following us."

Carlisle nodded, "Of course Marie."

I looked at the little mother, "This is Carter. He's a doctor, he'll look after you. Okay?" she nodded, her lower lip starting to tremble. She was starting to go into shock. I turned and left before the tears started, I want to kill aliens, not look after humans. I went down the hallway, I could hear the footsteps getting closer to me.

I rounded a corner and there were about twenty aliens there, no humans. They all stopped and held up their hands, "Human, you arrre out of line. You shhhould not be herrre. Come with me." It ordered.

I felt my lip curve up into a grim smile, "See, that's the really funny thing. I'm not a human, and I'm not going to do a damn thing you tell me to."

Its eyes widened, "You still cannot fight." It hissed slowly, "Come with usss beforrre we kill you."

I shook my head back and forth slowly, "How many humans have you bullied with that line? If we're talking killing, I think I'm already ten steps up. I'm kind of dead after all."

And with that final line to top things off I lunged at them, about seven of them fired off shots, but they reflected off of my shield and went back and hit them instead. I found that slightly ironic, but then again, my sense of humour has been flawed for a very long time. I continued fighting off aliens, after about two minutes a larger group of the things came tearing around the corner.

I didn't spend any time thinking of how they could have known that their fellow aliens were in trouble, I was just happy that I could kill more aliens without having any humans in the crossfire. Eventually I was wading in the blue gloop, looking for more aliens and feeling more than slightly repulsed by it. Seeing that there were no more I went and picked up all the weapons I could find and sticking them in my backpack with the ones we had found earlier.

Continuing down the hallway I reached the track that had been filled with people earlier. Wandering around the building I couldn't help but be amazed by the sheer immensity of this place, however the aliens were getting it off of the ground was a mystery to me. I was pretty positive that after we got off of this thing that we should destroy it. I have the strangest feeling that we want to at least try to stop the humans from going down whatever power hungry path these things did.

I saw a door at the other side of the track; I tried to figure out how to open it for a while. Eventually I just fell back on kicking it as hard as I possibly could. It collapsed like paper under the force I put on it. Pulling it out of the way I heard moaning and crying; this was the area where they were keeping the humans. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket- hopefully the ship hasn't knocked down all the towers in the area. I dialled Carlisle's number and he picked up the phone, "Carlisle, I've found where they're keeping the humans. It's right by the huge front doors of the spaceship, if you can stop the spaceship we can get them out all at once here."

"I'll tell everyone. The wolves are going to head out towards you, okay?"

I nodded, "Okay."

It's time to save the human race.

**Esme POV**

I climbed up the ladder, placing one hand steadily in front of another despite the slippery texture of the metal. I could hear a strange pumping noise up ahead. Carlisle had called to say that Bella had found the humans, so I was hoping that this was the engine room. The sooner that we found that room and got the ship stopped; the sooner we could permanently damage some of the shiny engines and get out of here. Not that I begrudge the fact that we're helping the innocent humans, but every second that my family spends on this walking natural disaster, the greater the chances become that something will go horribly, horribly wrong.

Like a human seeing us without us knowing- the walls here are strange, seemingly thick because of their density, yet in reality startlingly thin. A human could be right around the corner and we would never know. And then they'd repeat the story, it would hit the news, the Volturi would find out, and then –surprise, surprise- we all die slowly and painfully. That being said, I'd rather die trying to save millions of lives now, as opposed to waiting a century for Aro to come up with some false charge and kill us while we run like cowards.

I reached the top of the ladder and flipped the hatch open, pulling myself into the room above.

I came face-to-face with a group of aliens, their guns pointed at me threateningly (or rather, it would have been threatening had I been a human) one of the opened their mouths. "Crrreaturrre, you arrre not human, thisss we know frrrom that frrreakishhh girrrl. But I believe we have you at a disssatavntage rrright now."

Wow, these things learn fast- I wonder if they have a group mind.

No, I'm actually serious about that. If their minds are telepathically linked then that would explain how they found out about Bella (I'm going to assume it's Bella, since Carlisle said that she got into a small scuffle with a few of them) since I highly doubt that she would have let any of them live. She's a sweet girl, but all of her newborn instincts have been morphed into motherly ones, and these things tried to kill her only daughter. Bella's perfectly capable of wiping every last alien off of the face of the earth to protect Renesmee.

I smiled at them, "And I'm sure that little incident with my daughter taught you something about us." I leapt over them as fast as I could, spinning around to meet them eye to eye before coming to a complete standstill. "Like the speed..." I smashed three of them together faster than they could blink their little beady black eyes, leaving six of them standing there stunned, "And the strength..." walking as slowly and as menacingly as I could I stalked towards them, "And the _overwhelmingly_ large temper."

And then I pounced.

They fired shots off, trying desperately to hit me. I dodged them easily, still managing to stay airborne until I crashed into them fists first. I took out at least four of them in that first charge. I spun quickly, hooking my elbow into one, making it explode into a heap of slime with the other four. Barely pausing to think I kicked out towards the last one, sinking my foot deep into its stomach (or the area where the stomach would be on a human. Who knows if the alien even has a stomach?) Apparently there was something vital there too, because it collapsed into a heap of mushy blue gunk.

I straightened out of my crouch, looking cautiously around the room. There was no sign of any of the creepy blue extraterrestrials. I tried my best to brush the gunk off of my pants and hands, but the stuff had had a few seconds to dry and was now stuck on like glue. I sighed in disgust and muttered a few unpleasant things under my breath.

I noticed a door on the other side of the room- it must have been what the aliens were protecting. It was a sliding door, like the kind you would normally find as closet or bathroom door in a house. I pried it open slightly and a booming noise started filling the room. I crossed my fingers and looked through, hoping that it was the engine.

Whatever it was though, it was definitely not an engine. Through the door there was a huge room with a glass roof and the typical steel-like walls. There were aliens scurrying about everywhere, all dressed in suits similar to those bio-hazard suits you see in hospitals. They were tending to about two hundred tanks. There were maturing aliens all hooked up inside them, growing so that they would be all ready to take over the world soon. They looked just like the ones seen in movies (ironically enough, normally the ones that feature aliens taking over the world).

The aliens in the tanks looked very similar to the ones we had been killing all along. I wondered how old they must all be. I bet they just stop ageing once they get out of the tanks, after all, I shudder to think what the adults would be like if these damage causing monsters that have destroyed half our world are only half grown. Maybe they would be like... actually- hold that thought. I _really _don't want to think about it. It's just a bad thought.

All the aliens in the room were rushing about; if my group mind theory was correct then they would know that I was right outside, probably watching them. They would know that Bella had reached the humans, and that their ship was about to come crashing down because of my rather delinquent family. Well, I guess it's well overdue that they find out that can't rule the world.

I looked to make sure that there were no humans anywhere in the room (perhaps being pureed to feed to the alien children...) before bracing myself and ripping the door wide open. There was the huge screeching noise and everything in the room went dead silent except for the pumping of the machines.

"Wow... awkward." I said, waltzing into the room, "I don't even have a witty line to say to irritate you all and make you attack me..."

Turns out that I didn't need a line. They all started trying to kill me anyways. I'd normally go into a long and arduous description of the fight, except that it was pretty much like the last one, multiplied by ten in size and one in difficulty. They just don't learn how to run. They all fight, it's like their race has no survival instincts built in at all (which isn't all that surprising, since I'm betting that for however many millennia that they're species has been pillaging the universe, they've never once ran into a single group of things that can fight them). I can't really say that I'm very disappointed about that- it makes my life a lot easier when I have to kill them. There's no herding involved, just plain, boring massacring.

That sounds a lot worse than it is... '_massacring_'... now there's a word that I would've never thought I was going to use to describe something that I'm doing. I guess my vampire nature is finally starting to get to me.

I finished killing all of the aliens in the room (well, the ones weren't very creepily floating in blue ooze in alien nurseries). I think that by the end of this campaign then I'll be covered in blue gunk. Right now the bottoms of my jeans are caked with the stuff. At least my hands are clean; I had enough sense to brush them off right after the fight. I paused and looked around the room, staring at all of the tanks with aliens floating in it.

How do I get rid of them?

I walked up to the nearest one and tapped the glass. The alien in the tank gave no response- he was blind and death in there. If this is the aliens form of enrichment, then no wonder they've got so many issues. The glass seemed very, very strong; stronger than even diamond. I tapped harder, giving it enough strength, so that even if it were diamond it would have shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

Nothing happened.

I frowned and pulled my fist back, punching it as hard as I possibly could.

Nothing happened.

My mouth fell open; the seemingly fragile substance was impenetrable. I grinned for a second, wondering what I could do with a substance like this on April fool's Day. Then I realized something else. If the aliens could create materials that were stronger than us, could they create weapons that were stronger than us too?

My mind couldn't fathom what such a weapon could be, but that wasn't really so surprising- my mind hadn't been able to fathom the glass until I saw that.

I turned my mind back to how to destroy the aliens safely entrapped in the cages. Looking around the room I couldn't see anything, no switch that would trigger a mechanism and open the cage. Figuring that there was nothing left to do in the room since I couldn't seem to get into the cages I went to go and collect all the weapons the disintegrating aliens had dropped.

I walked around the room, inspecting the piles of alien gloop in the room. Fingering the one weapon I found (the aliens in here weren't meant for protection- that's what the aliens outside were for) I had an idea. Taking the gun-like object and examining it, I figured out how to work the trigger. It was like one of the spray hoses where you twist the nozzle to let the water out.

I turned and pointed it at one of the tanks, aiming for the bottom of it so that all the liquid would pour out of it, and fired. It hit the side of the tank and melted a hole in it like it would in glass. All of the clear gloop poured out, and the alien hit the bottom of the cage and melted. They must have been in them because their skin wasn't thick enough to withstand the gravity of the planet yet. Maybe they weren't even alien infants at all. Divers have compression chambers that stop them from getting the bends- maybe this is the alien's version of one of those.

Either way, it doesn't matter really, I'm about to destroy them all anyways. I started walking up and down the aisles, systematically obliterating all of the tanks. After about five minutes I figured I had gotten rid of them all.

I looked around for another door to go through. There were no doors, but there was another ladder on to the roof of the spaceship. I sighed and climbed up it.

Here we go again.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: And here comes part two of the vampires vs. Aliens section. Hope you like it!**

**Chapter Eleven- Vampires vs. Aliens pt.2**

**Edward POV**

Alice and I walked down one of the hallways, coming to a fork in the path. One had stairs leading into a room, the other a ladder leading several feet up. Alice frowned, "What way do you want to go?"

"Which do you see is the best?"

"I don't know. I can't _see, _remember?" She hissed exasperatedly, "I'm as blind as a baby with all these aliens and their technology around. I feel so defenceless right now." She finished her rant, taking a deep breath to calm herself.

I frowned, trying to listen to their thoughts. All I could hear were the occasional mental whispers. Something about these walls muffled their thoughts- I hope that whatever it is isn't stopping Bella's shield. That being said though, if I could find out what the walls are made out of then I would be able to use it to mind proof my room. Not being to hear my siblings sexual fantasies would be a huge blessing.

"I can't hear anything. How about I just go left, and you go right." I said, frowning. I could half understand her feeling helpless- there could be a thousand aliens on the other side of the wall and I would never know. It's like not being able to hear.

I turned and went up the stairs to the left, stopping at the door and cautiously looking around. The room beyond was empty. I walked inside and looked around- it reminded me of a science classroom. There were desks and counters with paper-like materials and objects that I would assume were the alien equivalent of pencils.

The entire room was in a state of disarray, it was entirely possible that the aliens had a different sense of organization then I did, but I figured that the most likely assumption was that they all had to leave in a hurry. I walked over to the nearest desk; it had a pile of book-like objects on it.

The outside covers were a peculiar yellow colour, the pages on the inside a blood red with white writing on it. The writing was in a language I couldn't understand; it was just a bunch of random letters and symbols.

I searched around the desk some more, flipping through the pieces of paper and books. I was struck again by the similarity that this room had to a school. After carefully storing all the books in my back pack I noticed a book on the ground.

It was an English to alien speech dictionary. I sat down and started reading it, scanning the pages as quickly and thoroughly as I could. It was insanely detailed; I wondered how long the aliens must have been watching us in order to get such a strong grip on our language. It had descriptions of every verb, every syntax. Looking around the desk I found more of the peculiar dictionaries for French, Spanish, and Italian- if you could think of a language that was commonly spoken on this planet then it was there. I grabbed only the English version. It was worth more than solid gold right now.

I sat down and skimmed through it, realizing that it would take me hours to get everything stuck in my head so I could use it, I turned and stuck the book in my backpack. I walked around the classroom, there was one desk filled with experiment-like things. I grabbed what looked like the instructions and stuck those in the bag to. When we get home I'll get a chance to study them. I'm curious to see what the already super-informed aliens would be studying about.

There were things that I could kind of recognize, but most of the objects on that desk were totally unrecognizable, completely unknown. I couldn't even guess at what they would be for.

There were six desks in the room; I had looked at only two of them. I walked back towards the next desk, which was covered in maps of our earth and... somewhere else. I grabbed both of them; I knew everything on the earth, so maybe I'd be able to use the earth maps to decipher the alien ones. The Earth ones were filled to the brim with symbols, and the alien ones had almost none- this shouldn't be too hard. I would do it now if I didn't really want to go kill aliens.

I continued over to the next desk, there were diagrams of human autonomy written in alien. I shuddered and left those where they were. I had enough of sexual education in gym- I definitely don't need to learn about it in alien terms. It would probably be even more graphic, and even more annoying and idiotic. I did grab their diagrams of the human brain though; maybe Carlisle would find them interesting. Humans know so little about their own mind, maybe the aliens will do better.

The next table had diagrams of plants and animals on it. I looked at those for anything that might be useful, but there was nothing. It was just them learning about plants and animals on our planet, all stuff we already knew about. Boring, compared to other things that they've been studying.

The table behind that one, was filled with things that looked like equations and diagrams- I really need to read that dictionary and find out what they mean. Right now it's all total gibberish to me, under that was diagrams about how their guns and technology work. I grabbed those eagerly and stuffed them into the backpack. It's going to take all my willpower to make sure that I don't look at them until I'm back at the house.

The next table only had one thing on it, a big, thick book written totally in alien. There was a velvet cloth underneath of it. Whatever this book was it was obviously important.

I guess I'll just grab it then.

I did that, sticking it into my backpack, which became noticeably heavier with the thick text in it. There were no more desks, which was a good thing, since my backpack was almost full. I would have to remember to stick the weapons I found in the front pocket only- we don't want to risk getting alien gloop all over the books. It would be just my luck to get such a great find and then make the books and papers illegible.

At that point I think I'd probably just tell my family I didn't find anything. That's less embarrassing then saying that I found something amazing, and then accidently soaked it in blue alien slime.

I went back down the hallway, heading back the way I came towards the exit door. Eventually I came around the corner and saw Carlisle and Esme standing there, leaning against the wall. "Hey Esme, Carlisle."

They both nodded at me and I started telling them what I found. Carlisle's eyes were glinting with curiosity and Esme looked intrigued. "Can I see?" asked Carlisle eagerly. I handed him the dictionary and he looked through it quickly, "Amazing." He breathed.

**Jasper POV**

I climbed up another ladder. I felt like I was on an obstacle course, there were ladders and tunnels all over this ship. Luckily there were no pathways branching off of this one (if I remember the map correctly) because if this is one of the main hallways, then I shudder to think of what the out-of-the-way side ones are going to look like.

Treacherous, would be my best guess. Impossible to pass would be the next.

I finally reached a kind of arch-thingy. It was covered in lasers that blocked anyone from going through. I snickered; my life has gone from a horror movie to a bad sci-fi. I think the horror movie would've been safer than this; there was only a slight chance of provoking the Volturi there.

Allow me to rephrase that- there's only a slight chance of giving them reason to kill us there. We've _already _provoked them.

I stared at the panel beside the door for a while, trying to figure out how to turn it off. Eventually I just gave up, if this panel is connected to the door then it is part of the circuit, and if I rip it out then I'll break the circuit and shut off the lasers. There's a slight chance of electrocution there, but, why not? I grabbed the panel and yanked with all my might.

I was surprised to find that the panel actually took some effort to get off. Is there not a single thing that's actually normal about this ship? It's even more of a freak show than I am.

And that says a _lot._

Eventually the thing came off with the loud metallic screeching noise of something metal ripping and tearing. There was a fizzing noise and all the lasers flickered out. I walked through the door and stated whistling. A bunch of shocked aliens stood on the other side. I sent some waves around the room to increase their sense of confusion, and then said, "It's a lovely day today, isn't it?"

They all just stared, still to boggled to do anything.

I got to the center of their little group; they all stood in a tight circle around me. I spun once, sticking my hands out the way a child spinning in circles would. My hands sliced through their necks and I kept going, still whistling merrily while I brushed alien slime off of my hands. Bella and Edward would probably both waste their time on dramatics when they got to go kill some aliens, I just don't see the point in that. Besides- the looks on the stupid alien's faces had been priceless, even better than the look on Carlisle's face when Bella told him that she was pregnant with Edward's child.

I wish I had been able to see the look on Edward's face when that happened. Judging by the way Alice had started shrieking with laughter, it must have been better than both the alien's and Carlisle combined. I'll have to make sure Bella takes a picture next time she springs something like that on Edward.

I circled the room; it was filled with racks of weapons. I would never be able to carry them all, which means I'm going to have to destroy them all. I sighed and looked around for something to do that with. There wasn't anything, and that means I'm going to have to do it all by hand. I darted over to the first rack.

Hopefully if I go as fast as I possibly can then it won't take more than twenty minutes. Looking at the number of weapons in this room, it probably won't go quite like that, but hey- I can be optimistic. Right?

**Alien POV**

The room I was in was darker than all the other rooms in the ship, made to intimidate whatever creature was captured and interrogated in it. It had been working for as long as the ship had been out pillaging the universe. They just tended to crumble in it.

These forsaken 'humans' never do anything right though, they don't crumble under interrogation, they don't follow orders. They all live in a society that seems to value two opposites, both order and rebellion at once. And that causes a huge mess here. They're weak yes, but unless we corner them, they never go in the direction we want them to. We've all got the _minshka _binding our minds together, and yet, they all stand up for each other more than we do. They somehow manage to spit on authority and worship it at the same time, and we're only getting the spitting end of things.

And then there are those powerful ones that look and act like humans, yet are ten times stronger. They have repeatedly rubbed in our faces that they are not humans and we cannot bully them like one. They've got ten times the attitude along with the ten times the power. It's taken them less than a _frigash,_ ('hour' is what the humans would call it. When invading someone's planet it's best to acquaint one's self with the inhabitant's terminology.) to almost totally disable the ships. They've found the information room and raided it, they've freed some humans, killed a bunch of my people, destroyed the nursery, and disabled our weapons. They're unstoppable!

I wonder if the humans know what these creatures are. I looked down towards the screens where we were monitoring the ship. Two of the creatures, one with long yellow hair and another with big muscles, were almost at the engine and control room. If I don't figure out how to stop them then we're going to come crashing down.

"_Frin- would you mind bringing me subject 222497? I need to have a chat with him." _I sent down the mental link to one of my soldiers who was guarding the humans. Not that he would be any use to me as a guard unless I could figure out how to flatten these creatures. I may be bigger than my brethren and able to take them on, but it is said that the leader will only fight against the _vrondik_- the one group of slaves that my people are destined to lose against. To lower myself to fight would lower moral. I do not believe in the myth, but many of my soldiers do.

Besides, if my men are capable of defeating them, why should I bother to?

Frin entered the room dragging a human behind him. The human fought against Frin, issuing curses and trying to land blows. The human was a high ranking official from the governing body's intelligent agency. If the humans knew anything about these creatures, then this man will know.

In theory anyways, hopefully it'll prove to be a correct theory.

The man got one look at me and stopped fighting. Frin sat him down in the chair and did up the arm restraints; bowing to me he walked out of the room. The minute he firmly shut the door behind him, I turned to the human. "Ssso," I said calmly, "You arrre with the CIA. Corrrect?"

The human nodded nervously. Maybe I will get lucky and he'll be too interested in saving his own hide to demonstrate the rebellious streak that the rest of his people seem to feel. "Tell me then, when you werrre worrrking forrr yourrr countrrry, did you everrr encounterrr anything strrrongerrr than a human?"

The man shook his head, speaking nervously and quickly he said, "N-n-no." Hmmm... He's telling the truth. I wonder how clueless the human race could possibly be to have not noticed these creatures walking on their planet. They noticed us quickly enough, after all.

"Rrreally, how... intrrriguing. I suppose you've neverrr hearrrd of anything that could _posssibly _be strrrongerrr eitherrr. No inconsssequential myth?"

He shook his head again, "No," he said, his voice stronger.

I smiled cruelly, "You arrre lying. I'll give you one chance to tell the trrruth."

His mouth fell open, and he started babbling. "There are millions of myths about monsters. It would take me hours to tell you all of them..." he trailed off, not sure if I was angry at him. I wasn't- I just don't care enough to get angry at him. After all, what purpose would anger have in this situation, he's terrified enough already.

"I'll show you a video, and then you'll tell me." I said menacingly, flipping his chair around so that it faced the monitor.

He gulped, I'd be gulping too if I were him. If he doesn't know then I'll have to stop him from telling his fellow humans that maybe there's a chance after all. I turned on the clip for him to watch, the screen was of a higher detail than anything the humans were used to, much clearer with sound built into the entire screen. For the first few seconds everything was quiet, filled with nothing but the murmuring of my men.

Then the stupid brown haired girl walked in, I knew from the minds of the others she's killed that she's killed more of my men than all the others combined. We should have never attacked her and her daughter. They looked like such easy targets walking alone in those woods, but we were so wrong about that.

The man's mouth fell open, I guess he finds her beautiful. "I wouldn't date herrr if I werrre you. She'sss marrried with childrrren." I murmured lightly, the man flinched, "Pay attention to what you'rrrre sssupposssed to be doing."

He nodded, the tiny bob of his head barely visible, and gained a sudden interest on the T.V. screen. All my men responded instantly, raising their guns into the air and preparing to attack her. One of them gave the customary, ", you arrre out of line. You shhhould not be herrre. Come with me."

The girl grinned, showing her teeth. It was animalistic somehow, and yet, strangely civilised. "See, that's the really funny thing. I'm not a human, and I'm not going to do a damn thing you tell me to." She murmured gently, her voice polite and threatening at the same time.

You still cannot fight." They hissed slowly, "Come with usss beforrre we kill you."

The girl laughed, she obviously had a bone to pick with our kind. "How many humans have you bullied with that line? If we're talking killing, I think I'm already ten steps up. I'm kind of dead after all."After that finishing line things began to go steadily downhill. Everyone started firing, and she charged, dodging the shots easily and killing everyone in the room.

"Ssso," I breathed at the terrified human below me, "Herrre'sss the million dollar quessstion. What isss ssshe, and how do we kill herr?"

The man opened his mouth and said, "I don't know. I didn't even know something like her existed." I sighed and pulled out my gun.

"Isss that yourrr final anwssser?" I asked quietly. He didn't do anything but nod. "You losse." I said, flipping the trigger once and shooting him.

I sighed and tried to figure out what was next, but the door at the other side of the room opened and a small creature walked in. She had pointy black hair and the same vibrant yellow eyes as her family. She looked up at me and snarled. "Killing people in cold blood is generally looked down upon." Before lunging at me.

I stepped to the side and the two of us began fighting, it was an almost perfectly matched fight. I smiled grimly, enjoying myself.

I rarely get to fight against such a strong opponent.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: And here is Part three of three in this section of the story- have fun reading [=**

**Chapter Twelve- Vampires vs. Aliens pt.3**

**Rosalie POV**

Emmett and I opened the only door that went directly out of the hallway where the entrance to the ship was. Beyond that hallway there was a long hallway filled with doors- I felt like I was playing the lottery, one door opens up to a million dollar prize (the engine) while another might open up filled with a booby trap (like a room full of humans). These walls were so sound proof that even though I couldn't hear a single human heartbeat, that didn't mean that there weren't humans there.

I ground my teeth in frustration- I don't like odds like that. I wish Alice could see, there's no such thing as _odds _around her, just _facts. _We would have to open every door, because unless the engine for this ship was really loud, then we would never know if we've missed it until it's too late. "You take that side," I ordered Emmett, pointing at the right side of the hallway. The hallway had a slight upward slope to it, making me wonder where it was going to come up to.

We walked down the hallway, opening every door in the hallway. They all opened up to identical rooms with six swinging hammock-like things made up of a strange brownish-black fabric that was both thick and flexible at the same time. I couldn't help but wonder how uncomfortable those must be to sleep on- there were no pillows and no blankets, and no trunks or closets that could contain such things. The rooms were small and dark, and completely bare of any personal items- either the aliens are born on this ship, never seeing anything worth keeping, or their natures are completely unlike that of humans. Humans (and anything else on our planet for that matter) feel the need to 'mark territory', and show that something is _theirs. _These things probably don't even bother sleeping on the same bed every night.

Honestly- can you think of any time you've ever heard of a human spending more than one day in a place, and never spending the same night in the same bed? Even if they spend every night in a different hotel then they'll throw a hat onto a bed or something to claim it as theirs.

These things are just so bizarre.

We continued down the hall, all of the rooms were just empty sleeping rooms. The one time we had stumbled upon one filled with aliens they had all been trapped in a coma-like state, and killing them had been a breeze. Did killing the creatures in cold blood bother me?

Nah. I killed Royce and his friends in cold blood too. The aliens aren't as bad as him, but that would be why I didn't torture the aliens to death.

We reached the end of the hallway where two huge double doors stood. I was about to open them up when both out phones started ringing. "Hello?" I said, only picking mine up while Emmett leaned against me, listening.

"Hey Rose- it's Carlisle. Is Emmett with you?"

"Of course."

"Good. Bella's found where the aliens are keeping all the humans, so unless you're heading to where she is then you probably won't run into any of them." I breathed a sigh of relief, I didn't want to deal with humans today. "We really need to find the control room. Everyone else, except Alice, has come back here. It's fifty-fifty that you're on the right path, so hurry, we don't have much time to waste."

I nodded, "We've explored about half way. The map showed some big rooms up ahead- hopefully one of them is the engine. Talk to you later." I hung up the phone, anxious to get going now that I knew none of the rooms had humans in them. I find it ironic that we're both avoiding them and saving them at the same time. Not that it's really surprising, I mean, if you had a really big secret, would you trust a human with it?

I thought not.

Emmett and I grinned at each other. "Three... Two... One..."

WHAM! We both kicked the doors as hard as we possibly could; they buckled slightly but didn't come down. Emmett chuckled, "You know, being able to kick something as hard as we can and not have it collapse is strangely satisfying. It's nice to be able to use our muscles at full power." I nodded in agreement with him; living in a world with super strength was like spending eternity in a china shop. Something just has to be right beside us and oh-so-breakable.

"Shall we try again?" I asked.

Emmett nodded, putting on a fake English accent (Carlisle would kill him, he always seems to think Emmett is making fun of him when he does that- normally because Emmett _is _making fun of him) "We shall." He said shortly.

It took us seventeen very satisfying kicks to break the door in and see the room beyond, and I very nearly turned and an ran from the sight. As a vampire that murdered a few people in my life, I can say I've seen a few pretty ugly things. The aliens have once again managed to impress though.

Sunlight streamed down through the glass-like ceiling. The ceiling was obviously not made of glass, because, had it been glass then it would have shattered under its own weight long ago. It was high noon, so the sun burned brightly- illuminating every disgusting detail. The room was like a bad horror movie gone wrong. You know those movies with the operating tables that the horrific monsters would always tie the helpless humans to before performing gruesome experiments on them?

This is an exact replica of that movie, with ten times the horror and absolutely no censorship.

We began heading to the other side of the room, very pointedly not looking at the half-dissected humans around us. We were lucky that the smell of the blood was muffled by the overwhelming metallic stench of alien, or else something could have gone horribly, horribly wrong.

We were about halfway through the room when I noticed another thick black door on the other wall. I pointed at it, I thought I could hear a really, really faint noise. It was tiny, almost nothing and completely indistinguishable. As we got closer I could kind of make it out, okay, allow me to rephrase; it got louder. It was still totally unrecognizable, except for now I could hear thumping noises and breaks in the faint keening noise.

I really hope that that is an alien, not a trapped human. I suppose we should at least try to rescue whoever it is (assuming it's not a human, if it's an alien then I'll open the door, but after that the term 'out of the frying pan, into the fire' will begin to apply to said alien's life). We walked up and stared at the door thinking. We couldn't just kick it in; we might hurt whatever is on the other side (assuming that it's not the engine. In that case destroying is required).

Emmett frowned, "The hinges don't look very strong, if I just-" he tried to pry the hinges off, but they were attached to close to the wall for his fingers to get a good grip. "-never mind. Damn aliens and their metals." He swore.

We tried grabbing onto the opposite edge of the door and prying it open, but nothing happened. All of a sudden I had one of those 'light bulb' moments that make you want to go hit your head really hard on a hard, sometimes pointy object. "Ermm... why don't we just try the doorknob?"

Emmett stared at me blankly for a few seconds, and then he started chuckling weakly. After a while the chuckles turned to howls of laughter and I couldn't help but join in- I swear, the aliens are trying to steal the last bits of my sanity. Not that there's very much of it left to take; you try being a vampire, it really wears down the nerves. After a while we stopped laughing and tried twisting the doorknob.

The door swung right open for us, revealing a long row of cells. Luckily for us we hadn't done anything inhuman yet, so the humans have no reason to suspect anything fishy... unless they think of how we're miraculously free and how the aliens are nowhere to be found. I peeked into the nearest cell and a woman shrank back, giving a shriek of pure terror.

Wow, and she doesn't even know I'm a vampire.

She was a petit woman with black hair and startlingly blue, innocent eyes. Of course... if I get a human it's going to be one that scares easily, not one that comes readily equipped with a spine.

"Relax," I said soothingly, while at the same time trying to mimic your stereotypical dumb blonde, "I'm not one of the aliens. They all ran off for some reason. My name is Sarah, what's yours?"

"Sunni," she said wetly, tears running down her face.

"Cool- do you know where the keys are?"

She shook her head, "the aliens had them and they ran down towards the human pens. I've been in here for hours."

I made a sympathetic noise, I heard Emmett say, "Hey Ro-" I faked a loud cough, "Sarah," he corrected himself, "Would you mind swapping with me. There's a little girl in this cell, and I think I'm kind of making her nervous."

"Eric, get over here. You should know better."

Emmett came over, his arms spread helplessly, "I can't help it." Lowering his voice so the humans (all two of them) couldn't hear us, he said, "Do you want to rip the doors off?"

I sighed, two humans isn't an unmanageable number, and I'd feel guilty for eternity if I left a small child here to rot. "We should. Make sure you don't do anything sudden, we don't need to terrify them."

I went to help the girl. Sunni didn't seem the least bit upset about having a big, hot, muscled guy with good manners taking care of her. I chuckled softly and went to kneel beside the girl's cell. "Hey honey, my name is Sarah- what's yours?" The girl was tiny, with long brown hair and deep brown eyes, she reminded me of Renesmee and I wanted to help her immediately. I knew that being hasty would just terrify the tiny thing more though, so I took my time and had concern for the small child's emotions.

"Juliette," she sniffled softly, "can you get me out, please?"

"Of course. I'm going to take the door off of its hinges, so I want you to be ready for a really big noise, okay?" she bobbed her head nervously. I grabbed hold of the bars and pulled with all my might. They started to peel off slowly, coming off at the weak points. Eventually it came off with a loud metallic screech.

Juliette's eyes opened wide, "that was cool- you're really strong."

"Oh, not really." I said modestly. "Why don't we go see Sunni?"

She nodded eagerly, I guessed that she knew Sunni, and I hoped with all my heart that Sunni was her mom. We walked over to where Emmett had just pulled the bars off of Sunni's cell. Sunni ran out, "Baby!" she cried happily, hugging the small child.

"I take it that you two know each other?" I said happily leaning against the wall. Hopefully this'll be a 'two birds with one stone' kind of moment.

Sunni nodded, "Both her parents died in a car crash and I rescued her. She's had a bumpy life, things used to get so hectic in here that I wouldn't be able to hear her anymore. I thought she was gone. How did you manage to get the doors off so quickly, and using only your bare hands?"

I looked her in the eye, "I cannot tell you. You must never, ever, _ever _tell anyone that you've seen us. There are things much more dangerous than us out there, and if they found out we'd freed you..." I let my voice trail off ominously, for once letting my true nature show through.

"What would happen?" she asked curiously.

"The penalty for letting a normal person know is death. We'd die, you'd die, and anyone else that we've rescued today would die too." There, and hopefully the 'normal person' will imply to her that we're actually human beings. Plus the warnings of mass murder are enough to deter anyone from being chatty.

She nodded mutely, "But that's beside the point." I said, faking cheerfulness, "Just tell people that the aliens dropped the keys by your cell door when they left in a hurry and no harm will ever come of it. Now we're going to go outside and I'm going to cover your eyes, because what's out there makes a Saw movie seem like a child's T.V. show."

Okay, so maybe I'm having a bit of fun with this...

We left the room with the mother's hands pressed protectively over her adopted daughter's and mine pressed over hers. For added protection, Emmett was walking between us and the tables. I really didn't feel like giving an eight year old child horrific nightmares that would resurface whenever she had to dissect something in science class. Hell, I'm going to have nightmares whenever I dissect something in science class and I don't even sleep.

We reached the door and walked a safe distance down the hallways before uncovering their eyes. "The door is that way," I told them, "There are no more aliens here, and there's someone just down the hallway to help you out the door. We have to turn around and keep going. Remember: do not tell _anyone_."

They nodded and walked down the hallway. I took a deep breath and sent up a silent prayer that they would keep their mouths shut so that we wouldn't have to shut them for them. We turned and went quickly back through the room and through the passages beyond. Many of the rooms were filled with some _interesting _things, but none of them had any humans, aliens or engines in them, so we quickly passed them by.

Eventually we came to two absolutely colossal doors; we spent about twenty minutes throwing ourselves up against them to get through. The very ground around us rumbled with sound, it was like a deep bass beat. No wonder the walls were so insulated- it was to stop the vibrations from this thing from shaking the entire ship to pieces. Now I could understand the reason a ship this big could get off the ground, it had been perfectly constructed with light materials (like the very thin walls) that were insanely strong with one very powerful engine to top things off.

Dang, I wish I could keep this thing! It's like Christmas come early just to get a glance at the object powerful enough to move this tank. I wonder if I could replicate it, or at least make something similar to it- it would probably make my car go awfully fast.

Tempting, oh so tempting.

In the end we couldn't get the doors to even open, we just punched a hole through them and squeezed inside. The minute we got the hole open it felt like my eardrums were going to shatter from the deep thrumming, it was insanely loud. It's a surprise that the aliens aren't all deaf from the noise. I stood up and looked around- the engine was unsurprisingly huge. But it was so huge that even though I was expecting it, I was totally surprised.

It was an intimidating array of wires and pumps and tanks filled strange liquids that I had never seen before in my life, let alone tried to disassemble. The entire thing must have made up thirty percent of the ship's mass.

It is still the single coolest thing that I have ever seen.

I looked around for a way to somehow turn it off. It seemed totally invulnerable; nothing could penetrate it and stop it. In the very back of the room, in the most shadowed corner (probably to hide it from ones such as us) was a tiny control panel, the Achilles' heel of the engine. I tapped Emmett on the back and pointed, unable to say anything loud enough for him to hear over the racket.

We carefully made our way over to the engine, narrowly avoiding being knocked over by huge pistons in the confined space. I can honestly say that, for once in my life, while I was standing right beside the gigantic engine, that I felt totally and utterly powerless. I've decided that I don't really like the feeling, so I guess that's one good thing about getting turned- it's a little hard to feel vulnerable when you're a rock.

I went over to the panel, there were a series of buttons on it. Most of them were small and uniform, but there was one big red one. It was like the apple in the garden of Eden- I knew that something bad would probably happen when I hit it, but it was just so tempting. Besides, it might actually be the emergency stop button on the engine. Such buttons are normally big and easy to hit after all. I figured that I had no idea anyways, so I might as well just chance it.

I reached out and gave it one big _whap _with my hand, crossing my fingers and hoping that I wouldn't blow us all up. Fate seemed to be with me though, because the engine slowly ground to a stop, slowing down so quickly it left my mind boggled.

I grinned at Emmett, and with our ears still ringing we walked out of the room.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: And here comes the final Chapter, Enjoy, and- do I even need to say it?- review if you like it.**

**Chapter Thirteen- London Bridge Comes Falling Down**

**Bella POV**

I was leaning against a wall, with the wolves lounging around me when the engine came to a slow and grinding halt. I grinned at Sam and his brothers, "So here's how this is going to work," I instructed calmly, "We're going to use that panel over there. Apparently- if Edward's translations are correct- the switch to the left will open the big door and the switch to the right will open the big door and let loose the humans... and whatever animals are being kept here. I want you guys to stand there, there, there and there." I said, pointing out the animal doors. "As soon as I flip the big switch here then you flip the little switches on those doors to stop them from opening. Then we bolt out, using the confusion of over ten million humans going to make a break for it."

They all went to stand near their assigned posts I stood there for a few seconds- relishing the moment. I was feeling more than slightly smug right now. This will show those aliens not to mess with my daughter again! I flipped the switch and the giant door groaned open, revealing the outside world in a burst of sunlight. The good news was that the sunlight didn't reach where I was standing. It's kind of hard to sneak away when you're sparkling, so I was rather relieved about that.

"You guys ready?"I called at the wolves. They all nodded, "Awesome." I said, a huge and most likely childish grin breaking out over my face. I yanked the lever down with a relish and the wolves flipped the switches, stopping the animals from running out and trampling the humans. We turned and ran down the opposite hallway, back towards where we first got onto the spaceship.

A thunderous cheer rose up from the humans, and they all ran out into the sun, tears running down their faces. It was a classical Kodak moment and the joy radiating off the humans was immense. I bet that if Jasper were here then he'd probably be getting high off of the feeling. It was very touching, and I'd bet that if it were captured on camera the it'd be one of those things that gets replayed over and over again as one of the highpoints of human history (or even _the _high point, perhaps).

I have to admit, I was feeling pretty good about myself. It's not every day that I get to be the hero as opposed to the monster- I have to say it's quite a good feeling. Now all I have to do is make sure I don't kill anybody and spoil that oh-so-nice feeling. I'd love to be able to spend eternity guilt free, but since I have a conscience, the only way for me to do that is to not hurt anyone. So far I think I'm doing pretty well with that one.

I turned and walked down the hallway with the wolves following- I wondered if there were even aliens left in the ship. I had killed about forty, the wolves twenty, Esme apparently killed fifty, Carlisle only killed ten, Jasper killed about fifteen, Emmett and Rosalie didn't kill any (the aliens had deserted what they were working on to run to fight us, so there were no aliens in that part of the ship), Edward had gone to kill the ones hiding behind the human pens, so I haven't heard back from him yet, and Alice was still wandering around somewhere. All in all though, the numbers were impressive, especially considering that we'd only been in here for a few hours.

We walked around the corner to where the rest of my family were, "We released the humans," I said, grinning proudly.

Edward came around the corner, "I know," he said, wrapping his arms around me and kissing the top of my head, "good job, Love." I leaned into his embrace, but then stopped and looked around, realizing something.

"Guys..." I began, "When was the last time any of us talked to Alice?" Everyone stopped to look at me questioningly.

Carlisle shook his head, "I got a hold of her to tell her you were letting the humans out. I assumed that she went with you to let them out since the path she took would lead her straight to you. Why don't we just go find her instead of talking about it? We're all done here anyways; we should leave before the humans come exploring."

We all turned and went down the hallway Alice had gone down- none of us were really worried, Alice is a big, scary vampire that's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. Even without her gift in use she's a formidable opponent.

**Alice POV**

Shit! I threw myself out of the way of the giant alien's fist coming down over my head. I had come into this room earlier, hearing a gunshot I figured maybe it was one of my siblings getting into a fight. I burst through the door only to find a dead human and the universe's biggest, meanest, fastest, strongest alien.

It was absolutely huge, standing almost eight feet tall with Emmett-style muscles. The damn thing could move as fast as me, and it was twice as strong. The only good news was that I had more training than it did in fighting, so things were evened up a little bit. It was like playing a game of cat and mouse though (me being the mouse and it being the cat), I didn't want to just leave it here for one of my siblings to stumble upon, but I couldn't close in on it either- it would crush me easily.

The only thing I could hope for was that it would get tired. It didn't show any signs of it yet, but one can hope that it's just really good at hiding these signs. We'd been at it for twenty minutes; my family has to notice I'm missing soon, right?

The alien's fist came down again. I still hadn't managed to get up to my feet, so I was forced to roll myself out of the way. I slammed into the walls- everything here was built to be a pain in the ass for a vampire. No really, we can't go through walls, we can't break down the doors easily, the glass itself is impenetrable. We can't even beat up the head alien.

I had nowhere left to get to, and I had just barely gotten onto my knees when it grabbed my neck, lifting me off of the ground. I was suspended above the ground, my legs flailing as I tried desperately to plant a kick. I reached up and grabbed his arm, squeezing with all my might. Something gave a loud, wet _SNAP!_ and a tiny amount of blue liquid seeped from the crack in its skin. It still managed not to let go, even somehow managing not to flinch.

I've thought of ways I could die many, many times. I'm proud to say that never once has it ever occurred to me that I was going to die at the hands of a giant, blue alien. So, naturally of course, that is going to be the way I die.

Before that happened though, it had to figure out how to kill me first. We were at a stalemate; I knew how to kill it and wasn't strong enough to do so, he was strong enough to kill me, but didn't know how to do so. I was hoping that my family would show up soon and take the whole 'killing me' part out of that equation so that we would end up with a positive end sum instead of a negative one. I really don't feel like dying right now, and I'd prefer to die when I'm ready for it (not that I'll ever feel like dying, but at least I have the ability to never die).

It stood there for a few minutes, staring at me with a look of incredulity, I guess even the super creatures from there planet can't live without the wondrous thing known as air. Actually, I'm kind of fond of that substance myself- the sooner this thug decides to take the pressure off of my throat the sooner I'll feel a lot better.

I got a good grip on his arm with my hands and kicked upwards towards his bicep- my kick bounced uselessly off of the muscles, but the alien winced, so I assumed that I hit a tender spot. I decided that even if it wasn't doing anything, repetitions of that motion would make me feel a hell of a lot better.

"Ssstop that." It hissed at me, "it ssserrrvesss no purrrpossse and it isss verrry annoying."

"But it does serve a purpose," I managed to gasp out.

"To get yourself killed?" it sneered.

"To make me die happy." I responded, giving it my best award winning grin before delivering another kick to its arm.

A charge began to build in the alien; it was electricity, but not electricity at the same time. Carlisle had been right- it was a gift, not pure electricity. And as a gift I'm willing to bet that it can do a hell of a lot of damage to a vampire. Since I'm feeling the charge, I'm guessing that the walls are blocking Bella's shield. That would mean I am going to get the full force of a shock that creates heat, burns like Jane's gift and shocks like Kate's.

Whether I die or not this is going to _hurt._

I braced for pain, excepting the worst. Then there was a loud bang and my family came charging into the room. The zing of the electrical feeling disappeared as Bella came around the wall and the shield reached me.

I have never been happier to see my family in my entire un-dead life. Well, except for the time when the Volturi were playing elimination with them, but there's actually a reason that nothing is scarier than the Volturi.

They cheat.

Jasper dove for me, ripping me out of the alien's arms. We landed in a corner and watched my family make quick work of the alien, ganging up on it and ripping off its limbs the way they would on a bigger, stronger vampire. "Are you alright, Alice?" Jasper said, inspecting me for any injury while still managing to shoot glares at the decapitated and dismembered aliens.

"Fine Jazz, "I said, "but boy was I ever happy to see you."

He helped me get up onto my feet and we walked over to the others, Esme looked at me worriedly. "Are you okay Alice?"

I rolled my eyes, "I'm fine, Bella got into worse scrapes as a human."

"That I did," Bella agreed cheerfully, and I relaxed until she said, "but then again, I had to be hospitalized after them, so I'd recommend not following my example."

Edward was frowning funnily, and I looked at him questioningly. "It's nothing really," he said, "Esme was right about them having a group mind though- this alien had access to every mind on the ship. It was a one way ticket though; the other aliens couldn't hear him unless he wanted him to. He babbled something out to four other who had equal power to himself though, I couldn't understand most of it because I didn't get very far into the dictionary, but I did understand him saying 'abandon all attacks, the _vrondik_ (I've no idea what that means) have come'. And whatever it is must have hit home, because through the mental link all four of the other ships picked up to leave."

Bella looked around the room filled with dead aliens and humans and said, "Not only is this _really _not a place I want to spend time in, but if this is the only ship left on earth then how long do you think it'll take before humans swarm the place?"

We all turned and got out pretty quickly after that.

**Bella POV**

We didn't bother taking our time to get home- there wasn't very much sightseeing to do unless you wanted to spend the day going 'oh honey look- there's a lovely ruined house. I wonder if it's for sale!' or 'Daddy look- a mangled corpse. Can we keep it?'

For some absolutely _bizarre _reason none of us wanted to do that.

We did however, play a game to see who could come up with the best touristy thing to say about the destructed landscape around us (we tend to spend a lot of time repressing unpleasant things with good ones). Emmett won with a perfectly delivered 'hey look, go grab your camera- the natives are holding a festival. I think they're really into it!' while pointing at a group of mummified corpses sitting around a barbeque. I'd have to say it was probably one of the more morbid things that I've ever done, but it was a lot of fun.

We arrived back at the hotel at about one o'clock in the afternoon, so everyone was wide awake and happy to see us alive. Apparently we took longer than they thought we would, even though we were gone for less than two days. There was a fair bit of crying from my mom, a lot of questions about how many aliens I killed from Renesmee, and a huge amount of money being collected. Apparently there was a betting pool about what the outcome for our little misadventure would be.

Much to my surprise Charlie won the most money, showing how well he had adapted to our mythical world (and the gambling habits that go with it- we're a rather corrupted lot sometimes). I was more than a little bit proud of him. After all, it's not every day that you get to brag about how you dad beat a bunch of werewolves and Quileute elders in a gambling competition about vampires.

Actually, it's not really any day at all that you get to brag about that.

I slipped happily back into worry free mode, we had rid the world of aliens, and I was more than a little happy about that. I didn't want to say that I had dealt with all the worries in my life were gone, because every time I say that I jinx it and something really, really bad happens. So I was just happy to enjoy my few minutes of bliss because all of my problems were solved.

I felt a little bit bad about how good of a time I was having. The humans' world was having some serious difficulties right now. Those ships ploughed through some of the most densely populated areas in the world, destroying the homes of millions of people. There were hunger strikes that evolved into riots because not enough food was being produced. The economy was in collapse, and likely to plunge a lot farther. Things were a huge mess everywhere in the world except here.

Everywhere except here... for some reason I was okay with that. I think I've done my duty for the human race today. Anymore and I'll be biting off far more than I can possibly chew. I looked around at the happy faces of my family and tried to relax and let my nerves calm down.

After all, in my life, no matter how good or bad things seem, they can always get a lot better... or most likely a lot worse.

I might as well enjoy my life right now since I have no idea what path it's going to take.


	14. Epoligue

**A/N: And here is the end of the story, and just in time, because I'm going away to camp for the next week and a half. Have fun reading it and, of course, review if you liked the story. Thanks so much to all the people who reviewed, favorited... etc. Reading those reviews and seeing those favourites really made my day.**

**Epilogue-Puzzle Pieces**

**Bella POV**

I lounged around in the living room of our house, Carlisle and Edward had called the hotel saying that they had figured out why the aliens had attacked the planet. All the vampires (plus Jacob)had pulled themselves from the room at that point so they could run home and fulfill their burning curiosity.

At least, that's what I did, so I'm assuming that they did the same thing since they left just as quickly as I did.

Carlisle and Edward glided down the stairs carrying a stack of books that looked as if someone had either spilt blood all over the inside pages, or gotten the colouring wrong when they printed the books. I'm going to take a giant leap and say that they're probably alien books.

Carlisle placed the thickest one on the center of the table, "Okay," he began, "This is the extraterrestrial version of the bible. Their belief system is fairly complicated, but basically they worship people like Alice, who can see the future. This book contains the premonitions of their first seer, in it states that in order for their planet to prosper they must travel to other planets with intelligent life form, because only there can the power they use to build everything on their planet. So, as a result, they send all they children aliens out to do so as a kind of rite of passage. All of those aliens on the ship- with the exception of the one Alice stumbled across- were children."

"So, there's a big planet filled with angry, super powerful adult aliens who want to fry us because we killed their sons and daughters?" Jake said with a nauseas look on his face.

Edward shook his head, "Not quite- there will be no retaliation from the planet for two reasons." He gestured for Carlisle to continue.

Carlisle continued, "There society was much more advanced than ours, I'm sure all of you could tell that, but they also had control of life force that we couldn't even imagine. We look at our supernatural gifts here as just that- gifts. They had the using of those gifts down to a science, the way we use oil. That's not the way those gifts are supposed to be used though, the aliens used them so much that they literally drained all the life force from their planet. So they'd come to planets like ours and suck us dry of life-force. All of the children aliens on those ships were test tube babies, created out of pure life-force. Not only did none of the adults on their home planet have any connection to them, but they were looked upon as liabilities until they managed to bring the amount of life-force it took to create them back to the planet."

"And reason number two?" prodded Jacob.

Carlisle just rolled his eyes patiently, "Right here," he said, flipping the alien book open to a certain page.

"None of us can read that."

"Maybe pictures will help you then." He flipped to the next page, where there was a rather graphic picture of... us. Us beating the crap out of the head alien to be exact.

It was as if someone had frozen us all in the middle of the fight and done a picture. We were fighting the alien, and Alice and Jasper lay in the corner of the ship. Alice had a peculiar symbol drawn on her forehead, as did I on mine. "Carlisle, why do Alice and I have funky alien text on our foreheads?" I asked (more whined, actually).

"Alice has the one for seer, and you have the one for... sorry it doesn't translate well... catalyst. In their belief system there are certain people that will trigger life altering events that will either save a planet or destroy it. You're a way to stop a planet from fermenting and becoming frozen in a particular stage of evolution. You're literally a walking time bomb."

"Of course I am." I muttered sourly, "So what does that picture mean though, or at least what do those words say."

"The second thing the seer said was that the leader of a ship must never, ever fight, because the first time that it did that then well... that would happen." He pointed at the picture, "They called us the _Vrondik_ which means both '_the destructive ones' _and _'the dead ones.'_ Trust me when I say we've got them running so scared that they'll probably avoid this entire section of the universe.

I leaned back into Edward's arms, "I'm okay with that." I murmured, "I believe the words 'may your life be interesting' are a curse somewhere, and I think I've gotten that curse for a few million people. It's their turn now."

Edward chuckled and tightened his arms around me. "I think that I'll have to agree."

The aliens are gone, there are no bloodthirsty human eating vampires causing trouble, no mythical explosions... yep, life is most certainly good right now.

Life is good.

Oh God, why do I have to keep jinxing it?


End file.
